Vol.  24 


JANUARY,  MCMIX 


No.  1 


^ 


iu/m 


TO  THE  HOME^  OR 


BY  ELEERT 


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REALLY 


great  man  is 
known  by 
three  signs- 
generosity  in  the  design, 
humanity  in  the  execu- 
tion and  moderation  in 

success.— B  IS  MA  RCK 


Entered  at  the  postofBce  at  East  Aarora,  New  Tork,  for  transmiflsifm  as  «scond-clas«  matter 
C:cH[>yri^t.  1906,  by  Elbert  Hubbard,  Editor  and  PaUidier. 


Is  Christianity  Declining? 


^^p^HAT  Debate  was   pulled   off,  without 
I    \  police  interference,  exactly  as  scheduled. 


There  was  enough  of  the  unexpected,  so 
no  one  went  to  sleep,  leaving  word  to  be 
called  when  it  was  over.  No  favor  was  asked  or 
given.  The  rounds  were  rapid  and  exciting. 
One  thing  I  discovered,  and  that  was  that  Dr. 
Albertson  is  a  great  talker.  He  is  also  a  good  looker. 
His  manly  six  feet  of  height,  and  two  hundred 
pounds  of  chest=tone,with  faultless  double-breast= 
ed  Prince  Albert,  put  me  to  the  bad  in  betting 
circles.  It  was  two  to  one  in  favor  of  the  Dominie. 
^  But  when  it  came  to  logic  I  put  the  thing  all  over 
him.  And  I  so  explained  to  the  Roycrofters,  in 
conclave  assembled,  when  I  got  home  at  Sun-up. 
^  Afterward,  I  learned  that  on  the  same  evening 
that  I  was  telling  the  truth  to  my  flock,  he  was 
explaining  to  his  congregation  how  he  had  run 
the  oratorical  Steam=Roller  over  me. 
So  both  sides  are  smiling.  A  full  report  of  the 
Debate  will  be  found  in  THE  FR A,  that  Magazine 
of  Kosmic  Kilowatts,  for  January.  Start  your  sub- 
scription to  THE  FRA  with  the  January  issue^ 


special  Attention 

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the  Immortal  Clan — are  urgently  requested 
not  to  display  Roycroft  Books  in  unpro- 
tected places,  fl  It  is  not  fair  to  your  friend 
to  introduce  an  unexpected  temptation 
while  he  awaits  your  arrival  in  the  Library. 
flTo  avoid  Temptation,  insure  that  sense 
of  Ease  and  Security  on  your  part,  and 
make  possible  many  Happy  Hours  for 
your  Friends,  just  send  them  a  Roycroft 
Book   for  their  very  own  ^  ^  ^  ^  ,^  ^ 

Our    Two    Dollar    Books 

make  friends  of  the  uninitiated,  and  con- 
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Books  and  Things  are  *  *  Something  New 
under  the  Sun" — and  We  want  the  whole 
World  to  Know  it.  fl  List  of  Titles  and 
Prices  furnished  on  request. 
The   Roycrofters,  East  Aurora,  N.   Y. 

By  Special  Appointment— Bookmakers  to  His  Most  Gracious  Highness, 
the  Prince  of  Good  Taste. 


Ilotu  'Pout  Jt? 

Hey  thar, 

Fra, 

Whar  yer  goin', 

Snortin'  an'  blowin' 

Like  all-persessed  ? 

Say,  you  jest 

Stop 

An'  listen  to  my  yawp, 

Just  a  minit. 

Cause  they  '  s  something  in  it. 

You  been  a-lambastin' 

Folks  'bout  tastin'  an'  wastin' 

Stuff  they  bolt  an'  gulp  an'  guzzle 

Inter  their  arliment'ry  puzzle. 

An'  hollerin' 

'  Bout  swollerin' 

An'  tellin'  'em  ter  chew, 

An'  chew  an'  chew. 

An'  CHEW  IT, 

An'  stick  to  it 

Ter  beat  ther  band, 

An'  show  some  grit  an'  sand, 

— Jest  like  ol'  Hod  Fletcher, 

But,  say  Fra — I  betcher 

Yer  didn't  stop  ter  think 

Whilst  yer  waz  a-slingin'  uv  all  that  there  ink 

'Bout  gittin  ev'ry  drop  uv  mastikashun  jooce. 

That  was  a-goin'  to  wear  yer  teeth  out  like  th'  Dooce ! 

— Arthur  Plummer 


THE    ROYCROFTERS 

EAST  AURORA,  ERIE  COUNTY,  NEW  YORK 

FRIENDS:— 

I  enclose  Two  Dollars  to  pay  for  a  yearly 
subscription  to  THE  FRA  Magazine. 

Name 

Address 

Date 


Check  Your  Choice.  One  of  these  beautiful  Roy- 
croft  books,   gratis,   with  every   subscription  for 

THE    FRA   MAGAZINE 

HEALTH  AND  WEALTH        -         -         -         -         Hubbard 
The  Broncho  Book  _  _  _  _     Capt.  Jack  Crawford 

Woman's  Work  -----         Alice  Hubbard 

Battle  of  Waterloo  _         _         _         -  Victor  Hugo 

White  Hyacinths         -  -  -  -  Elbert  Hubbard 

The  Rubaiyat         -  _  _  -  _  Omar  Khayyam 

A  William  Morris  Book       -         -         -      Hubbard  and  Thomson 
Crimes  Against  Criminals        -    .      -  -       Robert  G.  Ingersoll 

A  Christmas  Carol       -----       Charles  Dickens 
The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol  -  _  _  Oscar  Wilde 

Justinian  and  Theodora       -  -  Elbert  and  Alice  Hubbard 

BOUND  VOL.  LITTLE  JOURNEYS        -         -  Hubbard 

ARE      YOU      WITH      US? 


irp\mr\^ 


rro  THF  HOr?IE?TJR 


inF99  MFn 


I70UI-U I  t^h-n 


m 


NOMF  •  IMTQ-rn 


BOOK-BY-THB 


EH5IZHEE3EH 


siz^ZEmE-^oiyMTVi 


Bm  •  ^  ■  M  -  r^PPPlg 


T  HAVE  always  expended  to  the  last  shilling  my  surplus  wealth 
■^  in  promoting  this  great  and  good  cause  of  industrial  betterment. 
The  right  reverend  prelate  is  greatly  deceived  when  he  says  that  I 
have  squandered  my  wealth  in  profligacy  and  luxury.  I  have  never 
expended  a  pound  in  either;  all  my  habits  are  habits  of  temperance 
in  all  things,  and  I  challenge  the  right  reverend  prelate  and  all  his 
abettors  to  prove  the  contrary,  and  I  will  give  him  and  them  the 
means  of  following  me  through  every  stage  and  month  of  my  life. 
— ROBERT  OWEN,  in  Speech  before  the  House  of  Lords. 


TYP 


ROBERT       OWEN 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 

N  Germany,  the  land  of  philosophy, 
when  the  savants  sail  into  a  sea  of 
doubt,  some  one  cries,  "Back  to 
Kant!" 

In  America,  when  professed  democ- 
racy^ grows  ambitious  and  evolves 
a  lust  for  power,  men  say,  "Back 
to  Jefferson!" 

In  business,  when  employer  forgets 
employee  and  both  forget  their  better 
manhood,  we  say,  "Back  to  Robert 
Owen." 

We  will  not  go  back  to  Robert  Owen— we  will  go  on  to  Robert 
Owen,  for  his  philosophy  is  still  in  the  vanguard. 
Robert  Owen  was  a  business  man.  His  first  intent  was  to 
attain  a  practical  success.  He  produced  the  article,  and  sold 
it  at  a  profit. 

In  this  operation  of  taking  raw  material  and  manufacturing 
it  into  forms  of  use  and  beauty,  from  the  time  the  seed  was 
planted  in  the  ground  on  up  to  the  consumer  who  purchased 
the  finished  fabric  and  wove  it,  Owen  believed  that  all  should 
profit — all  shoxild  be  made  happier  by  every  transaction. 
That  is  to  say,  Robert  Owen  believed  that  a  business  trans- 
action where  both  sides  do  not  make  money  is  immoral. 
There  is  a  legal  maxim  still  cited  in  the  courts,  "Caveat 
emptor"— let  the  buyer  beware. 

For  this  maxim  Robert  Owen  had  no  respect.  He  scorned 
the  thought  of  selling  a  man  something  the  man  did  not 


ROBERT  OWEN 

want;  or  of  selling  an  article  for  anything  excepting  exactly 
what  it  was,  or  of  exacting  a  price  for  it  by  hook  or  crook, 
beyond  its  value. 

Robert  Owen  believed  in  himself,  and  in  his  product,  and 
he  believed  in  the  people.  He  was  a  democratic  optimist. 
He  had  faith  in  the  demos;  and  the  reason  was  that  his 
estimate  of  the  people  was  formed  by  seeing  into  his  own 
heart.  He  realized  that  he  was  a  part  of  the  people,  and  he 
knew  that  he  wanted  nothing  for  himself  which  the  world 
could  not  have  on  the  same  terms.  He  looked  into  the  calm 
depths  of  his  own  heart  and  saw  that  he  hated  tyranny, 
pretense,  vice,  hypocrisy,  extravagance  and  untruth.  He 
knew  in  the  silence  of  his  own  soul  that  he  loved  harmony, 
health,  industry,  reciprocity,  truth  and  helpfulness.  His 
desire  was  to  benefit  mankind,  and  to  help  himself  by 
helping  others. 

Therefore  he  concluded  that,  the  source  of  all  life  being 
the  same,  he  was  but  a  sample  of  the  average  man,  and 
all  men  would,  if  not  intimidated  and  repressed,  desire 
what  he  desired. 

When  physically  depressed  through  lack  of  diversified 
exercise,  bad  air,  or  wrong  conditions,  he  realized  that 
his  mind  was  apt  to  be  at  war,  not  only  with  its  best  self, 
but  with  any  person  who  chanced  to  be  near.  From  this 
he  argued  that  all  departures  in  society  were  occasioned 
by  wrong  physical  conditions,  and  in  order  to  get  a  full 
and  free  expression  of  the  Divine  Mind,  of  which  we  are 
all  reflectors  or  mediums,  our  bodies  must  have  a  right 
a 


ROBERT  0      W      E      N 

environment.  ^  To  get  this  Right  Environment  became  the 
chief  business  and  study  of  his  life. 

To  think  that  a  man  who  always  considers  "the  other 
fellow"  should  be  a  great  success  in  a  business  way  is  to 
us  more  or  less  of  a  paradox.  "Keep  your  eye  on  Number 
One,"  we  advise  the  youth  intent  on  success.  "Take  care 
of  yourself,"  say  the  bucolic  Solons  when  we  start  on  a 
little  journey.  And  "Self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of 
life,"  voice  the  wise  ones. 

And  yet  we  know  that  the  man  who  thinks  only  of  himself, 
acquires  the  distrust  of  the  whole  community.  He  sets  in 
motion  forces  that  work  against  him,  and  has  thereby 
created  a  handicap  that  blocks  him  at  every  step. 
Robert  Owen  was  one  of  those  quiet,  wise  men  who  win 
the  confidence  of  men,  and  thereby  siphon  to  themselves 
all  good  things.  That  the  psychology  of  success  should 
have  been  known  to  this  man  in  Seventeen  Hundred  and 
Ninety,  we  might  call  miraculous,  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that  the  miraculous  is  always  the  natural. 
Those  were  troublous  times  when  Robert  Owen  entered 
trade.  The  French  Revolution  was  on,  and  its  fires  lit  up 
the  intellectual  sky  of  the  whole  world.  The  Colonies  had 
been  lost  to  England ;  it  was  a  time  of  tumult  in  Threadneedle 
Street;  the  armies  of  the  world  were  lying  on  their  arms 
awaiting  orders.  And  out  of  this  great  unrest  emerged  Robert 
Owen,  handsome,  intelligent,  honest,  filled  with  a  holy  zeal 
to  help  himself  by  helping  humanity. 
Robert  Owen  was  born  at  the  village  of  Newtown,  Wales, 

3 


ROBERT  OWEN 

in  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Seventy-one.  After  being  away 
from  his  native  village  for  many  years,  he  returned,  as  did 
Shakespeare  and  as  have  so  many  successful  men,  and  again 
made  the  place  of  his  boyhood  the  home  of  his  old  age.  Owen 
died  in  the  house  in  which  he  was  born.  His  body  was  buried 
in  the  same  grave  where  sleeps  the  dust  of  his  father  and 
mother.  During  the  eighty-seven  years  of  his  life  he  accom- 
plished many  things  and  taught  the  world  lessons  which  it  has 
not  yet  memorized. 

In  point  of  time,  Robert  Owen  seems  to  have  been  the 
world's  first  Business  Man.  Private  business  was  to  him 
a  public  trust.  He  was  a  creator,  a  builder,  an  economist, 
an  educator,  a  humanitarian.  He  got  his  education  from 
his  work,  at  his  work,  and  strove  throughout  his  long  life 
to  make  it  possible  for  others  to  do  the  same. 
He  believed  in  the  Divinity  of  Business.  He  anticipated 
Emerson  by  saying,  "Commerce  consists  in  making  things 
for  people  who  need  them,  and  carrying  them  from  where 
they  are  plentiful  to  where  they  are  wanted." 
Every  economist  should  be  a  humanitarian;  and  every 
humanitarian  should  be  an  economist. 
Charles  Dickens,  writing  in  Eighteen  Himdred  and  Sixty, 
puts  forth  Scrooge,  Carker  and  Bumball  as  economists. 
When  Dickens  wanted  to  picture  ideal  business  men,  he 
gave  us  the  Cherryble  brothers — men  with  soft  hearts,  giving 
pennies  to  all  beggars,  shillings  to  poor  widows,  and  coal 
and  loaves  of  bread  to  families  living  in  rickety  tenements. 
The  Dickens  idea  of  betterment  was  the  priestly  plan  of  dole. 

4 


ROBERT  OWEN 

Dickens  did  not  know  that  indiscriminate  alms-giving  pau- 
perizes humanity,  and  never  did  he  supply  the  worid  a  glimpse 
of  a  man  like  Robert  Owen,  whose  charity  was  something 
more  than  palliation. 

Robert  Owen  was  born  in  decent  poverty,  of  parents  who 
knew  the  simple,  beautiful  and  necessary  virtues  of  industry, 
sobriety  and  economy.  Where  this  son  got  his  hunger  for 
books  and  his  restless  desire  for  achievement  we  do  not 
know.  He  was  a  business  genius,  and  from  genius  of  any 
kind  no  hovel  is  immune. 

He  was  sent  to  London  at  the  age  of  ten  to  learn  the 
saddler's  trade;  at  twelve  he  graduated  from  making  wax- 
ends,  blacking  leather  and  greasing  harness  and  took  a 
position  as  salesman  in  the  same  business. 
From  this  he  was  induced  to  become  a  salesman  for  a 
haberdasher.  He  had  charm  of  manner — fluidity,  sympathy 
and  health.  At  seventeen  he  asked  to  be  paid  a  commission 
on  sales  instead  of  a  salary,  and  on  this  basis  he  saved  a 
hundred  pounds  in  a  year. 

At  eighteen  a  customer  told  him  of  a  wonderful  invention — 
a  machine  that  was  run  by  steam — ^for  spinning  cotton  into 
yarn.  Robert  was  familiar  with  the  old  process  of  making 
woolen  yam  on  a  spinning-wheel  by  hand — his  mother  did 
it  and  had  taught  him  and  his  brothers  and  sisters  how. 
^  C6tton  was  just  coming  in,  since  the  close  of  "George 
Washington's  Rebellion."  Watt  had  watched  his  mother's 
teakettle  to  a  purpose.  Here  were  two  big  things  destined 
to  revolutionize  trade — the  use  of  cotton  in  place  of  flax 

5 


B      E 


WEN 


UST  here  let  us  take  a  side  trip 
in  this  LITTLE  JOURNEY  long 
enough  to  inspect  the  peculiar 
conditions  of  the  time. 
It  was  a  period  of  transition — the 
old  was  dying,  the  new  was  being 
born  ^  Both  experiences  were 
painful. 

There  was  a  rapid  displacement  of 
hand  labor.  One  machine  did  the 
work  of  ten  or  more  persons.  What 
were  these  people  who  were  thrown 
out  to  do?  Adjust  themselves  to  the  new  conditions,  you 
say.  True,  but  many  could  not.  They  starved,  grew  sick,  ate 
their  hearts  out  in  useless  complaining. 
Only  a  few  years  before,  and  the  spinning  of  flax  and  wool 
was  exclusively  a  home  industry.  Every  cottage  had  its 
spinning-wheel  and  loom.  There  was  a  garden,  a  cow,  a 
pig,  poultry  and  fruits  and  flowers.  The  whole  household 
worked,  and  the  wheel  and  loom  were  never  idle  while  it 
was  light.  The  family  worked  in  relays. 
It  was  a  very  happy  and  prosperous  time.  Life  was  simple 
and  natural.  There  was  constant  labor,  but  it  was  diversified. 
The  large  flocks  of  sheep,  raised  chiefly  for  wool,  made  mutton 
cheap.  Everything  was  homemade.  People  made  things  for 
themselves  and  if  they  acquired  a  superior  skill  they  supplied 
their  neighbors,  or  exchanged  products  with  them.  As  the 
manixfacturing  was  done  in  the  homes  there  was  no  crowding 
8 


ROBERT  OWEN 

of  population.  The  factory  boarding-house  and  the  tenement 
were  yet  to  come. 

This  was  the  condition  up  to  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Seventy. 
From  then  until  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Ninety  was  the  time 
of  transition.  By  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Ninety,  mills  were 
erected  wherever  there  was  water  power,  and  the  village 
artisans  were  moving  to  the  towns  to  work  in  the  mills. 
^  For  the  young  men  and  women  it  was  an  alluring  life. 
The  old  way  gave  them  no  time  to  themselves — there  was 
the  cow  to  milk,  the  pigs  and  poultry  to  care  for,  or  the 
garden  making  insistent  demands.  Now  they  worked  at 
certain  hours  for  certain  wages,  and  rested.  Tenements 
took  the  place  of  cottages  and  the  "public,"  with  its 
smiling  barkeep,  was  always  right  at  the  corner. 
Hargreaves,  Arkwright,  Watt  and  Eli  Whitney  had  worked 
a  revolution  more  far-reaching  than  did  Mirabeau,  Danton, 
Robespierre  and  Marat. 

Here  creeps  in  an  item  interesting  to  our  friends  who  revel 
in  syntax  and  prosody.  Any  machine  or  apparatus  for  lifting 
has  been  called  a  "jack"  since  the  days  of  Shakespeare. 
The  jack  was  a  bearer  of  bundles,  a  lifter,  a  puller,  a  worker. 
Any  coarse  bit  of  mechanism  was  called  a  jack,  and  is  yet. 
In  most  factories  there  are  testing  jacks,  gearing  jacks, 
lifting  jacks.  Falstaff  tells  of  a  jack-of-all-trades.  The  jack 
was  anything  strong,  patient  and  serviceable. 
When  Hargreaves,  the  Lancashire  carpenter,  invented  his 
spinning-machine  a  village  wit  called  it  a  "jenny."  The 
machine  was  fine,  delicate,  subtle  and,  as  spinning  was  a 

9 


ROBERT  OWEN 

woman's  business  anyway,  the  new  machine  was  parsed 
in  the  feminine  gender. 

Soon  the  new  invention  took  on  a  heavier  and  stronger 
form,  and  its  persistency  suggested  to  some  other  merry 
villager  a  new  variation  and  it  was  called  a  "mule."  The 
word  stuck,  and  the  mule-spinner  is  with  us  wherever 
cotton  is  spun. 

The  discovery  that  coal  was  valuable  for  fuel  followed  the 
invention  of  the  steam  engine. 

When  things  are  needed  we  dig  down  and  find  them,  or 
reach  up  and  secure  them.  You  could  not  run  a  steamship, 
excepting  along  a  river  with  well-wooded  banks,  any  more 
than  you  could  run  an  automobile  with  coal. 
The  dealing  in  coal,  or  "coals**  as  our  English  cousins 
still  use  the  word,  began  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Nineteen. 
That  was  the  year  the  first  steamship,  the  Savannah,  crossed 
the  ocean.  She  ran  from  Savannah  to  London.  Her  time  was 
twenty-five  days.  She  burned  four  hundred  and  fifty  tons  of 
coal,  or  about  two-thirds  of  her  entire  carrying  capacity. 
Robert  Fulton  had  begun  running  his  steamer  "Clermont'* 
on  the  Hudson  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Seven,  but  there 
were  wooding  stations  every  twenty  miles. 
It  was  argued  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  no  steamship 
could  ever  cross  the  Atlantic  with  steam,  alone,  as  a  pro- 
pelling power.  And  even  as  it  was  being  mathematically 
proved,  the  whistle  of  the  ^Savannah  drowned  the  voice  of 
the  orator. 
But  the  Savannah  also  carried  sail,   and  so  the  doubters 

10 


.  ROBERT  OWEN 

still  held  the  floor.  An  iron  boat  with  no  sails  that  could 
cross  the  Atlantic  in  five  days,  was  a  miracle  that  no  optimist 
had  forseen — much  less,  dared  to  prophecy. 
The  new  conditions  almost  threatened  to  depopulate  the 
rural  districts.  Farmers  forsook  the  soil.  The  uncertainty 
of  a  crop  was  replaced  with  the  certainty  of  a  given  wage. 
Children  could  tend  the  spinning-jennies  as  well  as  men. 
There  was  a  demand  for  child  labor.  Any  poor  man  with 
a  big  family  counted  himself  rich.  Many  a  man  who  could 
not  find  a  job  at  a  man*s  wage  quit  work  and  was  supported 
by  his  wife  and  children.  To  rear  a  family  became  a 
paying  enterprise. 

Various  mill-owners  adopted  children  or  took  them  under 
the  apprentice  system,  agreeing  to  teach  them  the  trade. 
Girls  and  boys  from  orphan  asylums  and  workhouses  were 
secured  and  held  as  practical  slaves.  They  were  herded  in 
sheep-sheds  where  they  slept  on  straw  and  were  fed  in 
troughs.  They  were  worked  in  two  shifts,  night  and  day, 
so  the  straw  was  never  really  cold.  They  worked  twelve 
hours,  slept  eight,  and  one  hour  was  allowed  for  meals. 
Their  clothing  was  not  removed  excepting  on  Saturday. 
^  Any  alteration  in  the  business  life  of  a  people  is  fraught 
with  great  danger.  Recklessness,  greed  and  brutality  at 
such  a  time  are  rife. 

Almost  all  workingmen  of  forty  or  over  were  out  of  work. 
Naturally,  employers  hired  only  the  young,  the  active,  the 
athletic.  These  made  more  money  than  they  were  used  to 
making,  so  they  spent  it  lavishly  and  foolishly.  It  was  a 

IX 


ROBERT  OWEN 

woman's  business  an5rway,  the  new  machine  was  parsed 
in  the  feminine  gender. 

Soon  the  new  invention  took  on  a  heavier  and  stronger 
form,  and  its  persistency  suggested  to  some  other  merry 
villager  a  new  variation  and  it  was  called  a  "mule."  The 
word  stuck,  and  the  mule-spinner  is  with  us  wherever 
cotton  is  spun. 

The  discovery  that  coal  was  valuable  for  fuel  followed  the 
invention  of  the  steam  engine. 

When  things  are  needed  we  dig  down  and  find  them,  or 
reach  up  and  secure  them.  You  could  not  run  a  steamship, 
excepting  along  a  river  with  well-wooded  banks,  any  more 
than  you  could  run  an  automobile  with  coal. 
The  dealing  in  coal,  or  "coals**  as  our  English  cousins 
still  use  the  word,  began  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Nineteen. 
That  was  the  year  the  first  steamship,  the  Savannah,  crossed 
the  ocean.  She  ran  from  Savannah  to  London.  Her  time  was 
twenty-five  days.  She  burned  four  hundred  and  fifty  tons  of 
coal,  or  about  two-thirds  of  her  entire  carrying  capacity. 
Robert  Fulton  had  begim  running  his  steamer  "Clermont** 
on  the  Hudson  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Seven,  but  there 
were  wooding  stations  every  twenty  miles. 
It  was  argued  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  no  steamship 
cotild  ever  cross  the  Atlantic  with  steam,  alone,  as  a  pro- 
pelling power.  And  even  as  it  was  being  mathematically 
proved,  the  whistle  of  the  ^Savannah  drowned  the  voice  of 
the  orator. 
But  the  Savannah  also  carried  sail,   and  so  the  doubters 

10 


rr    OBERT  OWEN 

still  held  the  floor.  An  iron  boat  with  no  sails  that  could 
cross  the  Atlantic  in  five  days,  was  a  miracle  that  no  optimist 
had  forseen — much  less,  dared  to  prophecy. 
The  new  conditions  almost  threatened  to  depopulate  the 
rural  districts.  Farmers  forsook  the  soil.  The  uncertainty 
of  a  crop  was  replaced  with  the  certainty  of  a  given  wage. 
Children  could  tend  the  spinning-jennies  as  well  as  men. 
There  was  a  demand  for  child  labor.  Any  poor  man  with 
a  big  family  counted  himself  rich.  Many  a  man  who  could 
not  find  a  job  at  a  man's  wage  quit  work  and  was  supported 
by  his  wife  and  children.  To  rear  a  family  became  a 
paying  enterprise. 

Various  mill-owners  adopted  children  or  took  them  under 
the  apprentice  system,  agreeing  to  teach  them  the  trade. 
Girls  and  boys  from  orphan  asylums  and  workhouses  were 
secured  and  held  as  practical  slaves.  They  were  herded  in 
sheep-sheds  where  they  slept  on  straw  and  were  fed  in 
troughs.  They  were  worked  in  two  shifts,  night  and  day, 
so  the  straw  was  never  really  cold.  They  worked  twelve 
hours,  slept  eight,  and  one  hour  was  allowed  for  meals. 
Their  clothing  was  not  removed  excepting  on  Saturday. 
^  Any  alteration  in  the  business  life  of  a  people  is  fraught 
with  great  danger.  Recklessness,  greed  and  brutality  at 
such  a  time  are  rife. 

Almost  all  workingmen  of  forty  or  over  were  out  of  work. 
Naturally,  employers  hired  only  the  young,  the  active,  the 
athletic.  These  made  more  money  than  they  were  used  to 
making,  so  they  spent  it  lavishly  and  foolishly.  It  was  a 

xz 


ROBERT  OWEN 

prosperous  time,  yet  strangely  enough,  prosperity  brought 
starvation  to  thousands.  Family  life  in  many  instances  was 
destroyed  and  thus  were  built  those  long  rows  of  houses, 
all  alike,  with  no  mark  of  individuality — no  yards,  no  flowers, 
no  gardens — that  still  in  places  mar  the  landscape  in  factory 
towns.  Pretty  girls  went  to  the  towns  to  work  in  the  mills, 
and  thus  lost  home  ties.  Later  they  drifted  to  London. 
Drunkenness  increased. 

In  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Ninety-six,  there  was  formed 
the  Manchester  Board  of  Health.  Its  intent  was  to  guard 
the  interests  of  factory  workers.  Its  desire  was  to  insure 
light,  ventilation  and  sanitary  conveniences  for  the  workers. 
Beyond  this  it  did  not  seek  to  go. 

The  mill  superintendents  lifted  a  howl.  They  talked  about 
interference,  and  depriving  the  poor  people  of  the  right  to 
labor.  They  declared  it  was  all  a  private  matter  between 
themselves  and  the  workers — a  matter  of  contract. 
Robert  Owen,  it  seems,  was  the  first  factory  superintendent 
to  invite  inspection  of  his  plant.  He  worked  with  the  Board 
of  Health,  not  against  it.  He  refused  to  employ  children 
under  ten  years  of  age,  and  although  there  was  a  tax  on 
windows,  he  supplied  plenty  of  light  and  also  fresh  air. 
So  great  was  the  ignorance  of  the  workers,  that  they 
regarded  the  Factory  Laws  as  an  infringement  on  their 
rights.  The  greed  and  foolish  fears  of  the  mill-owners 
prompted  them  to  put  out  the  good  old  argument  that  a 
man's  children  were  his  own,  and  that  for  the  state  to  dictate 
to  him  where  they  should  work,  when  and  how,  was  a  species 

12 


ROBERT  OWEN 

of  tyranny.  Work  was  good  for  children!  Let  them  run  the 
streets?  Never! 

It  is  a  curious  thing  to  note  that  when  Senator  Albert  J. 
Beveridge  endeavored  to  have  a  Federal  Bill  passed  at 
Washington,  in  Nineteen  Hundred  and  Seven,  the  argu- 
ments he  had  to  meet  and  answer  were  those  which  Robert 
Owen  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  were  obliged  to  answer  in  Seven- 
teen Hundred  and  Ninety-five. 

When  a  man  who  worked  a  hundred  orphans  fourteen 
hours  a  day,  boys  and  girls  of  from  six  to  twelve,  was 
accused  of  cruelty  he  defended  himself  by  saying,  "If  I 
doesn't  work  *em  all  the  time  'cept  when  they  sleep  and 
eat,  they  will  learn  to  play,  and  then  never  work."  This 
argument  was  repeated  by  many  fond  parents  as  conclusive. 
^  The  stress  of  the  times — having  many  machines  in  one 
btxilding,  all  run  by  one  motor  power,  the  necessity  of 
buying  raw  material  in  quantities,  the  expense  of  finding 
a  market — all  these  combined  to  force  the  invention  of  a 
very  curious  economic  expediency.  It  was  called  a  Joint 
Stock  Company.  From  a  man  and  his  wife  and  his  children 
making  things  at  home,  we  get  two  or  three  men  going 
into  partnership  and  hiring  a  few  of  their  neighbors  at  day 
wages  J^  J. 

Then  we  get  the  system  of  "share-holding,"  with  hundreds 
or  thousands  of  people  as  partners  in  a  manufacturing 
enterprise  which  they  never  visit. 

The  people  who  owned  shares  were  the  ones  who  owned 
the  tools.  Very  naturally,  they  wanted  and  expected  divi- 

13 


ROBERT  OWEN 

dends  for  the  use  of  the  tools.  That  was  all  they  wanted — 
dividends.  The  manager  of  the  mill  held  his  position  only 
through  his  ability  to  make  the  venture  bring  returns.  The 
people  who  owned  the  shares  or  the  tools,  never  saw  the 
people  who  used  the  tools.  A  great  gulf  lay  between  them. 
For  the  wrongs  and  injustice  visited  upon  the  workers  no 
one^person  was  to  blame.  The  fault  was  shifted.  Everybody 
justified  himself.  And  then  came  the  saying,  "Corporations 
have  no  souls.'* 

Robert  Owen  was  manager  of  a  mill,  yet  he  saw  the  misery, 
the  ignorance  and  the  mental  indifference  that  resulted  from 
the  factory  system.  He,  too,  must  produce  dividends,  but 
the  desire  of  his  heart  was  also  to  mitigate  the  lot  of  the 
workers  ^  .^ 

Books  were  written  by  good  men  picturing  the  evils  of  the 
factory  system.  Comparisons  were  made  between  the  old 
and  new  in  which  the  hideousness  of  the  new  was  etched 
in  biting  phrase.  Some  tried  to  turn  the  dial  backward  and 
revive  the  cottage  industries,  as  did  Ruskin  a  little  later. 
"A  Dream  of  John  Ball"  was  anticipated  and  many  sighed 
for  "the  good  old  times." 

But  among  the  many  philosophers  and  philanthropists  who 
wrestled  with  the  problem,  Robert  Owen  seems  to  have  stood 
alone  in  the  belief  that  success  lay  in  going  on,  and  not  in 
turning  back.  He  set  himself  to  making  the  new  condition 
tolerable  and  prophesied  a  day  when  out  of  the  smoke  and 
din  of  strife  would  emerge  a  condition  that  would  make  for 
health,  happiness  and  prosperity  such  as  this  tired  old  world 

14 


n 


B      E 


WEN 


never  has  seen.  Robert  Owen  was  England's  first  Socialist. 
9  Very  naturally,  he  was  called  a  dreamer.  Some  called 
him  an  infidel,  and  the  enemy  of  society. 
Very  many  now  call  him  a  seer  and  a  prophet. 


N  Robert  Owen's  day  cotton  yarn 
was  packaged  and  sold  in  five- 
pound  btmdles.  These  packages 
were  made  up  in  hanks  of  a 
given  number  of  yards  jt  One 
hundred  and  twenty  counts  to  a 
package  was  fixed  upon  as  **  par" 
or  "standard  count."  If  the  thread 
was  very  fine  of  course  more  hanks 
were  required  to  make  up  the  five 
pounds.  The  price  ranged  up  or 
down,  below  or  above  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty  mark.  That  is,  if  a  package  contained 
two  hundred  and  forty  hanks,  its  value  was  just  double 
what  it  would  have  been  if  merely  standard. 
Robert  Owen  knew  fabrics  before  he  began  to  spin.  First, 
he  was  a  salesman.  Second,  he  made  the  things  he  could  sell. 
^  The  one  supremely  difficult  thing  in  business  is  sales- 
manship. Goods  can  be  manufactured  on  formula,  but  it 

15 


ROBERT  OWEN 

takes  a  man  to  sell.  He  who  can  sell  is  a  success — others 
may  be.  ^  The  only  men  who  succeed  in  dictating  the  policy 
of  the  house  are  those  in  the  Sales  Department;  that  is, 
those  who  are  on  the  side  of  income,  not  of  expense. 
The  man  with  a  "secret  process"  of  manufacture  always 
imparts  his  secret,  sooner  or  later,  but  the  salesman  does 
not  impart  his  secret,  because  he  can't.  It  is  not  trans- 
ferable. It  is  a  matter  of  personality.  Not  only  does  the 
salesman  have  to  know  his  goods,  but  he  must  know  the 
buyer — he  must  know  humanity. 

And  humanity  was  the  raw  stock  in  which  Robert  Owen 
dealt.  Robert  Owen  never  tried  to  increase  his  sales  by 
decreasing  his  price.  His  product  was  always  higher  than 
standard.  '^Anybody  can  cut  prices,"  he  said,  "but  it  takes 
brains  to  make  a  better  article."  He  focused  on  fineness. 
qAnd  soon  buyers  were  coming  to  him.  A  finer  article 
meant  a  finer  trade.  And  now,  on  each  package  of  yam 
that  Owen  sent  out  he  placed  a  label  that  read  thus,  "This 
package  was  made  under  the  supervision  of  Robert  Owen. " 
Thus  his  name  gradually  became  a  synonym  for  quality. 
^  Among  other  curious  ideas  held  by  Owen  was  that  to 
make  finer  goods  you  must  have  a  finer  quality  of  workman. 
To  produce  this  finer  type  of  person  now  became  his  dream. 
^  Mr.  Drinkwater  smiled  at  the  idea  and  emphasized 
"dividends." 

Now  Mr.  Drinkwater  had  a  son-in-law  who  looked  in  on 
things  once  a  month,  signed  his  voucher|^and  went  away 
fox-hunting.  He  thought  he  was  helping  run  the  mill. 
z6 


ROBERT  OWEN 


This  man  grew  jealous  of  the  young  manager  and  suggested 
that  Drinkwater  increase  the  boy's  pay  and  buy  off  the 
percentage  clause  in  the  contract  so  to  keep  the  youngster 
from  getting  meglacephalia. 

Drinkwater  asked  Owen  what  he  would  take  for  the  contract 
and  Owen  handed  it  to  him  and  said,  "Nothing."  It  gave 
him  a  chance  to  get  out  into  a  larger  field.  Drinkwater 
never  thought  of  the  value  of  that  little  Robert  Owen  label. 
No  wise  employer  should  ever  allow  a  thing  like  that. 
Owen  had  won  both  a  name  and  fame  among  the  mer- 
chants and  he  now  engaged  with  several  mills,  to  superintend 
their  output  and  sell  their  goods  with  his  label  on  each 
package.  In  other  words  he  was  a  Manufacturer's  Broker. 
From  a  five-hundred-pound-a-year  man  he  had  grown  to 
be  worth  two  thousand  pounds  a  year. 
No  mill  owned  him.  He  was  free — he  was  making  money. 
The  dream  of  human  betterment  was  still  in  his  heart. 
^  On  one  of  his  trips  to  Glasgow  to  sell  goods,  he  met  a 
daughter  of  David  Dale,  a  mill-owner  who  was  in  active 
competition  with  him.  Dale  made  a  fine  yarn,  too. 
The  girl  had  heard  of  Owen — they  met  as  enemies — a  very 
good  way  to  begin  an  acquaintance.  It  was  Nature's  old, 
old  game  of  stamen,  pistil  and  pollen,  that  fertilizes  the 
world  of  business,  betterment  and  beauty.  They  quarreled. 
"You  are  the  man  who  puts  your  name  on  the  package?" 
"Yes." 

"And^yet  you  own  no  mill  I" 
"True— but— " 

17 


ROBERT  OWEN 

"Never   mind.   You  certainly   are  proud  of  your  name." 
"  I  am — would  n't  you  be?" 
"Not  of  yours." 

Then  they  stared  at  each  other  in  defiance.  To  relieve  the 
tension,  Mr.  Owen  proposed  a  stroll.  They  took  a  walk 
through  the  park  and  discovered  that  they  both  were  inter- 
ested in  Social  Reform.  David  Dale  owned  the  mills  at  New 
Lanark — a  most  picturesque  site.  He  was  trying  to  carry  on 
a  big  business,  so  as  to  make  money  and  help  the  workers. 
He  was  doing  neither,  because  his  investment  in  the  plant 
had  consumed  too  much  of  his  working  capital. 
They  discussed  the  issue  until  eleven  forty-five  by  the  clock. 
^  The  girl  knew  business  and  knew  society.  The  latter  she 
had  no  use  for. 

The  next  day  they  met  again,  and  quite  accidentally  found 
themselves  engaged,  neither  of  *em  knew  how. 
It  was  very  embarrassing  I  How  could  they  break  the  news 
to  Papa  Dale? 

They  devised  a  way.  It  was  this:  Robert  Owen  was  to  go 
and  offer  to  buy  Mr.  Dale's  mills. 

Owen  went  over  to  Lanark  and  called  on  Mr.  Dale,  and 
told  him  he  wanted  to  buy  his  business.  Mr.  Dale  looked  at 
the  boy,  and  smiled.  Owen  was  twenty-seven,  but  appeared 
twenty,  being  beardless,  slight  and  fair-haired. 
The  youth  said  he  could  get  all  the  money  that  was  needed. 
They  sparred  for  a  time — neither  side  naming  figures.  It 
being  about  noon  time,  Mr.  Dale  asked  young  Mr.  Owen 
to  go  over  to  his  house  to  lunch.  Mr.  Dale  was  a  widower, 
i8 


R 


B 


W 


N 


but  his  daughter  kept  the  house.  Mr.  Dale  introduced  Mr. 

Owen  to  Miss  Dale. 

The  young  folks  played  their  parts  with  a  coolness  that 

would  have  delighted  John  Drew,  and  would  have  been 

suspicious  to  anybody  but  a  fussy  old  mill-owner. 

Finally  as  the  crumbs  were  being  brushed  from  the  rich 

man's  table,  Mr.  Dale  fixed  on  the  sum  of  sixty  thousand 

pounds  for  his  property. 

Owen  was  satisfied  and  named  as    terms   three  thousand 

pounds  and  interest  each  year  for  twenty  years,  touching 

the  young  lady's  toe  with  his  own  under  the  table. 

Mr.  Dale  agreed.  Mr.  Owen  had  the  money  to  make  the 

first  payment.  The  papers  were  drawn  up.  The  deal  was 

closed — all  but  the  difficult  part.  This  was  done  by  rushing 

the  enemy  in  his  library,  after  a  good  meal.  "It  keeps  the 

business  in  the  family,  you  see, "  said  the  girl  on  her  knees, 

pouting  prettily. 

The   point  was   gained    and    when    Robert   Owen,   a  few 

weeks  later,  came  to  New  Lanark  to  take  possession  of 

the  property,  he  did  as  much  for  the  girl.  So  they  were 

married  and  lived  happily  ever  afterward. 


19 


B      E 


W 


f\  OBERT  OWEN  took  up  his  work 
at  New  Lanark  with  all  the  en- 
thusiasm that  hope,  youth  and 
love  could  bring  to  bear. 
Mr.  Dale  had  carried  the  flag  as 
far  to  the  front  as  he  thought 
it  could  be  safely  carried;  that  is 
to  say,  as  far  as  he  was  able  to 
carry  it. 

Owen  had  his  work  cut  out  for 
him.  The  workers  were  mostly 
Lowland  Scotch  and  spoke  in  an 


almost  different  language  from  Owen.  They  looked  upon 
him  with  suspicion.  The  place  had  been  sold  and  they  had 
gone  with  it — how  were  they  to  be  treated?  Were  wages 
to  be  lowered  and  hours  extended?  Probably. 
Pilfering  had  been  reduced  to  a  system,  and  to  get  the  start 
of  the  soft-hearted  owner  was  considered  smart. 
Mr.  Dale  had  tried  to  have  a  school  and  to  this  end  had 
hired  an  elderly  Irishman,  who  gave  hard  lessons  and  a 
taste  of  the  birch  to  children  who  had  exhausted  themselves 
in  the  mills  and  had  no  zest  for  learning.  Mr.  Dale  had 
taken  on  over  two  hundred  pauper  children  from  the  work- 
houses and  these  were  a  sore  trial  to  him. 
Owen*s  first  move  was  to  reduce  the  working  hours  from 
twelve  to  ten  hours.  Indeed,  he  was  the  first  mill-owner 
to  adopt  the  ten-hour  plan.  He  improved  the  sanitary 
arrangements,  put  in  shower  baths  and  took  a  personal 
20 


ROBERT  OWEN 

interest  in  the  diet  of  his  little  wards,  often  dining  with 
them  J>  Jt> 

A  special  school  building  was  built  at  a  cost  of  thirty  thousand 
dollars.  This  was  both  a  day  and  a  night  school  jt  It  also 
took  children  of  one  year  old  and  over,  in  order  to  relieve 
mothers  who  worked  in  the  mills.  "The  little  mothers," 
often  only  four  or  five  years  old,  took  care  of  babies  a  year 
old  and  younger  all  day.  Owen  instructed  his  teachers 
never  to  scold  or  punish  by  inflicting  physical  pain.  His 
was  the  first  school  in  Christendom  to  abolish  the  rod. 
^  His  plan  anticipated  the  Kindergarten  and  the  Creche.  He 
called  mothers*  meetings  and  tried  to  show  the  uselessness 
of  scolding  and  beating,  because  to  do  these  things  was 
really  to  teach  the  children  to  do  them.  He  abolished  the 
sale  of  strong  drink  in  New  Lanark.  Model  houses  were 
erected,  gardens  planted  and  prizes  given  for  the  raising 
of  flowers. 

In  order  not  to  pauperize  his  people,  Owen  had  them  pay 
a  slight  tuition  for  the  care  of  the  children  and  there  was 
also  a  small  tax  levied  to  buy  flower  seeds. 
In  the  school  building  was  a  dance  hall  and  an  auditorium. 
fl  At  one  time  the  supply  of  raw  cotton  was  cut  off  for 
four  months.  During  this  time  Owen  paid  his  people  full 
wages,  insisted  that  they  should  all,  old  and  young,  go  to 
school  for  two  hours  a  day  and  work  also  two  hours  a  day 
at  tree  planting,  grading  and  gardening.  During  this  period 
of  idleness  he  paid  out  seven  thousand  pounds  in  wages. 
This  was  done  to  keep  the  workmen  from  wandering  away. 

21 


ROBERT  OWEN 

^  It  need  not  be  imagined  that  Owen  did  not  have  other 
cares  besides  those  of  social  betterment  jt  Much  of  the 
machinery  in  the  mills  was  worn  and  becoming  obsolete. 
To  replace  this  he  borrowed  a  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
Then  he  reorganized  his  business  as  a  stock  company  and 
sold  shares  to  several  London  merchants  with  whom  he 
dealt.  He  interested  Jeremy  Bentham,  the  great  jurist 
and  humanitarian,  and  Bentham  proved  his  faith  by  buying 
stock  in  the  New  Lanark  Company. 

Joseph  Lancaster,  the  Quaker,  a  mill-owner  and  philan- 
thropist, did  the  same. 

Owen  paid  a  dividend  of  five  per  cent  on  his  shares.  A 
surplus  was  also  set  aside  to  pay  dividends  in  case  of  a 
setback,  but  beyond  this  the  money  was  invested  in  bettering 
the  environment  of  his  people. 

New  Lanark  had  been  running  fourteen  years  under  Owen's 
management.  It  had  attracted  the  attention  of  the  civilized 
world.  The  Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  afterwards  the  Czar,  spent 
a  month  with  Owen  studying  his  methods.  The  Dukes  of 
Kent,  Sussex,  Bedford  and  Portland;  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury ;  the  Bishops  of  London,  Peterborough  and  Car- 
lisle; the  Marquis  of  Huntly;  Lords  Grosvenor,  Carnarvon, 
Granville,  Westmoreland,  Shaftesbury  and  Manners ;  General 
Sir  Thomas  Dyce  and  General  Brown ;  Ricardo,  De  Crespigny, 
Wilberf  orce,  Joseph  Butterworth  and  Sir  Francis  Baring  all 
visited  New  Lanark.  Writers,  preachers,  doctors,  in  fact  almost 
every  man  of  intellect  and  worth  in  the  Kingdom  knew  of 
Robert  Owen  and  his  wonderful  work  at  New  Lanark.  Sir 

22 


Robert        owen 


Robert  Peel  had  been  to  New  Lanark  and  had  gone  back 
home  and  issued  an  official  bulletin  inviting  mill-owners  to 
study  and  pattern  after  the  system. 

The  House  of  Commons  invited  Owen  to  appear  and  explain 
his  plan  for  abolishing  poverty  from  the  Kingdom.  He  was 
invited  to  lecture  in  many  cities.  He  issued  a  general  call 
to  all  mill-owners  in  the  Kingdom  to  co-operate  with  him 
in  banishing  ignorance  and  poverty. 
But  to  a  great  degree  Owen  worked  alone  and  New  Lanark 
was  a  curiosity.  Most  mill  towns  had  long  rows  of  dingy 
tenements,  all  alike,  guiltless  of  paint,  with  not  a  flower 
bed  or  tree  to  mitigate  the  unloveliness  of  the  scene.  Down 
there  in  the  dirt  and  squalor  lived  the  working-folks;  while 
away  up  on  the  hillside,  surrounded  by  a  vast  park,  with 
stables,  kennels  and  conservatories,  resided  the  owner. 
Owen  lived  with  his  people.  And  the  one  himdred  and  fifty 
acres  that  made  up  the  village  of  New  Lanark  contained  a 
happy,  healthy  and  prosperous  population  of  about  two 
thousand  people. 

There  was  neither  pauperism  nor  disease,  neither  gamblers 
nor  drunkards.  All  worked  and  all  went  to  school. 
It  was  an  object  lesson  of  thrift  and  beauty. 
Visitors  came  from  all  over  Europe — often  hundreds  a  day. 
^  Why  could  not  this  example  be  extended  indefinitely  so  that 
hundreds  of  such  villages  should  grow  instead  of  only  one? 
There  could,  and  there  can  and  there  will  be,  but  the  people 
must  evolve  their  own  ideal  environment  and  not  have  to 
have  it  supplied  for  them. 

23 


ROBERT  OWEN 

By  Owen's  strength  of  purpose  he  kept  the  village  ideal, 
but  he  failed  to  evolve  an  ideal  people.  All  around  were 
unideal  surroundings,  and  the  people  came  and  went. 
Strong  drink  was  to  be  had  only  a  few  miles  away.  To  have 
an  ideal  village,  it  must  be  located  in  an  ideal  country. 
Owen  called  on  the  clergy  to  unite  with  him  in  bringing 
about  an  ideal  material  environment.  He  said  that  good 
water,  sewerage  and  trees  and  flowers  worked  a  better 
spiritual  condition.  They  replied  by  calling  him  a  materialist. 
He  admitted  that  he  worked  for  a  material  good.  His 
followers  added  to  his  troubles  by  comparing  his  work 
with  that  of  the  clergy  round  about,  where  vice,  poverty 
and  strong  drink  grouped  themselves  about  a  steeple  upon 
which  was  a  cross  of  gold  to  which  labor  was  nailed — a 
simile  to  be  used  later  by  a  great  orator,  with  profit. 
Owen  was  a  Unitarian,  with  a  Quaker  bias.  Any  clergyman 
was  welcome  to  come  to  New  Lanark — it  was  a  free  platform. 
A  few  preachers  accepted  the  invitation,  with  the  intent  to 
convert  Robert  Owen  to  their  particular  cause.  New  Lanark 
was  pointed  out  all  over  England  as  a  godless  town.  The 
bishops  issued  a  general  address  to  all  rectors  and  curates 
warning  them  against  "any  system  of  morals  that  does 
away  with  God  and  His  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  fixing  its  salvation 
on  flower  beds  and  ragged  schools." 
New  Lanark  was  making  money,  because  it  was  producing 
goods  the  world  wanted.  But  its  workers  were  tabu  in 
respectable  society  and  priestly  hands  were  held  aloft  in 
pretended  horror  whenever  the  name  of  Robert  Owen,  or 
24 


ROBE 


W 


N 


the  word  ** Socialism"  was  used.  Owen  refused  to  employ 
child  labor  and  issued  a  book  directing  the  attention  of 
society  to  this  deadly  traffic  in  human  beings.  The  parents, 
the  clergy  and  the  other  mill-owners  combined  against  him 
and  he  was  denounced  by  press  and  pulpit. 
He  began  to  look  around  f  r  a  better  environment  for  an 
ideal    community.  His  gaze  was  turned  toward  America. 


OBERT  OWEN»S  plan  for  abol- 
ishing vice  and  poverty  was  simply 
to  set  the  people  to  work  under 
ideal  conditions,  and  then  allow 
them  time  enough  for  recreation 
and  mental  exercise,  so  that  thrift 
might  follow  farming. 
In  reply  to  the  argument  that  the 
workman  should  evolve  his  own 
standard  of  life,  independent  of 
his  employer,  Owen  said  that 
^  the  mill  with  its  vast  aggregation 
of  hands  was  an  artificial  condition.  The  invention,  ingenuity 
and  enterprise  that  evolved  the  mill  were  exceptional.  The 
operators  for  the  most  part  lacked  this  constructive  genius, 
the  proof  of  which  lay  in  the  very  fact  that  they  were 

25 


ROBERT  OWEN 

operators.  ^  To  take  advantage  of  their  limitations,  disrupt 
their  natural  and  accustomed  mode  of  life  and  then  throw 
the  blame  back  upon  them  for  not  evolving  a  new  and  better 
environment,  was  not  reasonable  nor  right. 
The  same  constructive  genius  that  built  the  mill  and  operated 
it,  should  be  actively  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  people 
who  worked  in  the  mill. 

To  this  end  there  should  be  an  ideal  village  adjacent  to 
every  great  mill.  This  village  should  afford  at  least  half 
an  acre  of  ground  for  every  family.  In  the  way  of  economy, 
one  building  should  house  a  thousand  people.  It  should  be 
built  in  the  form  of  a  parallelogram  and  contain  co-operative 
kitchens,  dining-rooms,  libraries,  art  galleries  and  gym- 
nasia. It  should  be,  in  fact,  a  great  University,  not  unlike 
the  great  collection  of  schools  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge. 
All  would  be  workers — all  would  be  students. 
The  villages  should  be  under  the  general  supervision  of  the 
government,  in  order  to  secure  stability  and  permanency. 
If  the  mill  management  failed,  the  government  should 
continue  the  business,  because  even  if  the  government  lost 
money  in  the  venture,  at  times,  this  was  better  than  always 
to  be  building  jails,  prisons,  insane  asylums,  almshouses  and 
hospitals  .^  Ji 

In  sections  where  there  were  no  mills  or  factories,  the 
government  would  construct  both  mills  and  villages,  to 
the  intent  that  idleness  and  ignorance  might  be  without 
excuse.  To  this  end  Owen  would  ask  all  landowners,  or 
holders  of  estates  of  a  thousand  acres  or  more,  to  set  apart 
a6 


ROBERT  OWEN 

one-tenth  of  their  land  for  ideal  villages  and  co-operative 
mills  to  be  managed  by  the  government. 
As  proof  that  his  plans  were  feasible,  Owen  pointed  to  New 
Lanark  and  invited  investigation. 

Among  others  who  answered  the  invitation  was  Henry  Hase, 
cashier  of  the  Bank  of  England.  Hase  reported  that  New 
Lanark  had  the  look  of  a  place  that  had  taken  a  century 
to  evolve  and,  in  his  mind,  the  nation  could  not  do  better 
than  to  follow  the  example  of  Owen.  He  then  added,  **U 
the  clergy,  nobility  and  mill-owners  will  adopt  the  general 
scientific  method  proposed  by  Mr.  Owen  for  the  abolition  of 
poverty,  ignorance  and  crime,  it  will  be  the  greatest  step 
of  progress  ever  seen  in  the  history  of  the  world." 
In  proposing  that  the  clergy,  nobility  and  mill-owners 
should  unite  for  the  good  of  mankind,  Mr.  Hase  was  not 
guilty  of  subtle  humor  or  ironical  suggestion.  He  was  an 
honest  and  sincere  man  who  had  been  exposed  to  the  con- 
tagious enthusiasm  of  Mr.  Owen. 

Owen  was  fifty-seven  years  of  age,  practical  man  that  he 
was,  before  he  realized  that  the  clergy,  the  nobility  and 
the  rich  mill-owners  had  already  entered  into  an  unconscious 
pact  to  let  mankind  go  to  Gehenna — just  so  long  as  the 
honors,  emoluments  and  dividends  were  preserved. 
That  is  to  say,  the  solicitation  of  the  Church  is  not  and 
never  has  been  for  the  welfare  of  the  people;  it  is  for  the 
welfare  of  the  Church  for  which  churchmen  fight  ,^  All 
persecution  turns  on  this  point. 
If  stability  of  the   Church  is  threatened,  the  churchmen 

27 


B      E 


WEN 


awake  and  cry,  "To  Arms!"  In  this  respect  the  Church, 
the  nobility  and  vested  capital  have  everything  in  common 
— they  want  perpetuity  and  security.  They  seek  safety.  All 
of  the  big  joint  stock  companies  had  in  their  directorates 
members  of  the  nobility  and  the  clergy.  The  bishops  held 
vast  estates — they  were  Lords. 

The  Church  livings  were  rooted  in  the  estates  of  the  nobility 
and  both  traced  to  a  common  ancestor — greed  ^  The  Gov- 
ernment was  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  Church 
and  nobility,  for  the  Church  and  nobility. 
Robert  Owen  did  not  represent  either  the  Church  or  nobility. 
He  was  a  very  exceptional  and  unique  product;  he  was  a 
workingman  who  had  become  a  philanthropic  capitalist.  He 
was  a  lover  of  humanity,  filled  with  a  holy  zeal  to  better  the 
condition  of  the  laborer. 


28 


R 


B 


WEN 


HE  mills  at  New  Lanark  were 
making  money,  but  the  share- 
holders in  London  were  not 
satisfied  with  their  dividends  Jt> 
They  considered  Owen's  plans 
for  educating  the  workingman 
chimerical.  In  one  respect  they 
knew  that  Owen  was  sane — he 
could  take  the  raw  stock  and 
produce  the  quality  of  goods 
that  had  a  market  value.  He 
had  trained  up  a  valuable  and 
skilled  force  of  foremen  and  workers.  Things  were  pros- 
perous and  would  be  much  more  so  if  Owen  would  only 
cease  dreaming  dreams  and  devote  himself  to  the  com- 
mercial end  of  the  game. 

If  he  would  not  do  this,  then  he  must  buy  their  stock  or 
sell  them  a  controlling  interest  of  his  own. 
He  chose  the  latter. 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twenty-five,  when  he  was  fifty- 
five  years  old,  he  sailed  for  America.  He  gave  lectures  in 
New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia  and  Washington  on  his 
new  order  of  economics.  He  was  listened  to  with  profound 
attention.  At  Washington  he  was  the  guest  of  the  President, 
and  on  invitation  addressed  a  joint  session  of  the  Senate 
and  the  House,  setting  forth  his  arguments  for  Socialism. 
5  The  Moravians  at  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania,  had  founded 
their  colony  as  early  as  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Twenty. 

29 


ROBERT  OWEN 

The  Zoarites,  the  Economites,  the  Separatists,  the  Shakers, 
and  the  Rappites  had  been  in  existence  and  maintained 
successful  communities  for  a  score  of  years. 
Robert  Owen  visited  these  various  colonies  and  saw  that 
they  were  all  prosperous.  There  was  neither  sickness,  vice, 
poverty,  drunkenness  nor  disease  to  be  found  among  them. 
He  became  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  demands 
of  an  advancing  civilization  would  certainly  be  co-operative 
in  nature.  Chance  might  unhorse  the  individual,  but  with 
a  community  the  element  of  chance  was  eliminated.  He 
laid  it  down  as  a  maxim,  evolved  from  his  study,  observation 
and  experience,  that  the  community  that  exists  for  three 
years  is  a  success.  That  no  industrial  community  had  ever 
endured  for  three  years,  save  as  it  was  founded  on  a  religious 
concept,  was  a  fact  that  he  overlooked.  Also,  he  failed  to 
see  that  the  second  generation  of  communists  did  not 
coalesce,  and  as  a  result  that  thirty-three  years  was  the 
age  limit  for  even  a  successful  community;  and  that  if  it 
still  survived,  it  was  because  it  was  reorganized  under  a 
strong  and  dominant  leadership. 

Communists  or  Socialists  are  of  two  classes — those  who 
wish  to  give  and  those  who  wish  to  get.  When  fifty-one 
per  cent  of  the  people  in  a  community  are  filled  with  a 
desire  to  give,  Socialism  will  be  a  success. 
Perhaps  the  most  successful  social  experiment  in  America 
was  the  Oneida  Community,  but  next  to  this  was  the  Har- 
monyites,  founded  by  George  Rapp  «^  The  Harmonyites 
fotmded  Harmony,  Indiana,  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and 
30 


ROBERT  OWEN 

Fourteen.  They  moved  from  Pennsylvania  and  had  been 
located  at  their  present  site  for  eleven  years.  They 
owned  thirty  thousand  acres  of  splendid  land  at  the  junction 
of  the  Wabash  and  Ohio  Rivers.  They  had  built  over  a 
hundred  houses,  had  barns,  stores,  a  church,  a  hall,  a  saw- 
mill, a  hotel  and  a  woolen  factory. 
Now  when  Owen  went  to  Pittsburg,  he  floated  down  the 
Ohio  to  Cincinnati  and  then  on  to  Harmony  ^  He  was 
graciously  received  and  was  delighted  with  all  he  saw  and 
heard  ^  J> 

Owen  saw  the  success  of  the  woolen  mill  and  declared  that 
to  bring  cotton  up   by   steamboats  from  the  South,  would 
be  easy.  He  would  found  cotton  mills  and  here  New  Lanark 
should  bloom  again  only  on  an  increased  scale. 
Would  the  Rappites  sell? 

Yes,  they  wanted  to  move  back  to  Pennsylvania,  where 
there  were  other  groups  of  similar  faith. 
Their  place,  they  figured,  was  worth  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars.  Owen  made  an  offer  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  which  to  his  surprise  was  quietly 
accepted.  It  was  a  quick  deal. 

The  Rappites  moved  out,  and  the  Owenites  moved  in. 
Just   across   the   Ohio   River   they  founded   the   town   of 
Owensboro  jt  j, 

Then  Owen  went  back  to  England  and  sent  over  about 
three  hundred  of  his  people,  including  his  own  son,  Robert 
Dale  Owen. 
Robert  Owen   had   large   interests   in   England,  and  New 

31 


ROBERT  OWEN 

Harmony  on  the  banks  of  the  Wabash  was  incidental. 
Robert  Dale  Owen  was  then  twenty-five  years  old.  He  was 
a  philosopher,  not  an  economist,  and  since  the  place  lacked 
a  business  head,  dissensions  arose.  Let  some  one  else  tell 
how  quickly  a  community  can  evaporate  when  it  lacks  the 
cement  of  religious  oneness: 

For  the  first  few  weeks,  all  entered  into  the  new  system 
with  a  will.  Service  was  the  order  of  the  day.  Men  who  seldom 
or  never  before  labored  with  their  hands,  devoted  themselves 
to  agriculture  and  the  mechanical  arts  with  a  zeal  which 
was  at  least  commendable,  though  not  always  well  directed. 
Ministers  of  the  gospel  guided  the  plow  and  called  swine  to 
their  corn  instead  of  sinners  to  repentance,  and  let  patience 
have  her  perfect  work  over  an  unruly  yoke  of  oxen  »^  Mer- 
chants exchanged  the  yardstick  for  the  rake  or  pitchfork ; 
and  all  appeared  to  labor  cheerfully  for  the  common  weal. 
Among  the  women  there  was  even  more  apparent  self- 
sacrifice.  Those  who  had  seldom  seen  the  inside  of  their 
own^kitchens  went  into  that  of  the  common  eating-house 
(formerly  a  hotel)  and  made  themselves  useful  among  pots 
and  kettles.  Refined  young  ladies  who  had  been  waited  upon 
all  their  lives,  took  turns  in  waiting  upon  others  at  the  table. 
And  several  times  a  week  all  parties  who  chose,  mingled  in 
the  social  dance  in  the  great  dining-hall. 
But  notwithstanding  the  apparent  heartiness  and  cordiality 
of  this  auspicious  opening,  it  was  in  the  social  atmosphere  of 
the  Community  that  the  first  cloud  arose.  Self-love  was  a 
spirit  which  could  not  be  exorcised.  It  whispered  to  the  lowly 
maidens,  whose  former  position  in  society  had  cultivated  the 
spirit  of  meekness — "Thou  art  as  good  as  the  formerly  rich 
and  fortunate ;  insist  upon  your  equality. "  It  reminded  the 
former  favorites  of  society  of  their  lost  superiority,  and  de- 

32 


ROBERT  OWEN 

spite  all  rules  tinctured  their  words  and  actions  with  **airs" 
and  conceit.  Similar  thoughts  and  feelings  soon  arose  among 
the  men;  and  though  not  so  soon  exhibited  they  were  none 
the  less  deep  and  strong.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  at  the  end  of 
three  months — three  months  I — the  leading  minds  in  the  com- 
munity were  compelled  to  acknowledge  to  each  other  that  the 
social  life  of  the  Community  could  not  be  botmded  by  a  single 
circle.  They  therefore  acquiesced,  though  reluctantly,  in  its 
division  into  many.  But  they  still  hoped  and  many  of  them 
no  doubt  believed  that  though  social  equality  was  a  failure, 
commimity  of  property  was  not.  Whether  the  law  of  mine  and 
thine  is  natural  or  incidental  in  human  character,  it  soon 
began  to  develope  its  sway.  The  industrious,  the  skilful  and 
the  strong  saw  the  product  of  their  labor  enjoyed  by  the 
indolent,  the  unskilled  and  the  improvident;  and  self-love 
rose  against  benevolence.  A  band  of  musicians  thought  their 
brassy  harmony  was  as  necessary  to  the  common  happiness 
as  bread  and  meat,  and  declined  to  enter  the  harvest-field 
or  the  workshop.  A  lecturer  upon  natural  science  insisted 
upon  talking  while  others  worked.  Mechanics,  whose  single 
day's  labor  brought  two  dollars  into  the  common  stock,  in- 
sisted that  they  should  in  justice  work  only  half  as  long  as 
the  agriculturist  whose  day*s  work  brought  but  one. 
Of  course,  for  a  while,  these  jealousies  were  concealed, 
but  soon  they  began  to  be  expressed.  It  was  useless  to  remind 
all  parties  that  the  common  labor  of  all  ministered  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  Community.  Individual  happiness  was  the 
law  of  nature  and  it  could  not  be  obliterated.  And  before  a 
single  year  had  passed,  this  law  had  scattered  the  members 
of  that  society  which  had  come  together  so  earnestly  and 
under  such  favorable  circumstances  and  driven  them  back 
into  the  selfish  world  from  which  they  came. 
The  writer  of  this  sketch  has  since  heard  the  history  of 

33 


B 


W 


N 


that  eventful  year  reviewed  with  honesty  and  earnestness 
by  the  best  men  and  most  intelligent  parties  of  that  unfor- 
tunate social  experiment  ^  They  admitted  the  favorable 
circumstances  which  surrounded  its  commencement;  the 
intelligence,  devotion  and  earnestness  which  were  brought 
to  the  cause  by  its  projectors  and  its  final  total  failure.  And 
they  rested  ever  after  in  the  belief  that  man  though  disposed 
to  philanthropy,  is  essentially  selfish  and  a  community  of 
social  equality  and  common  property  an  impossibility. 


HE  loss  of  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars  did  not  dampen  the  ardor 
of  Robert  Owen.  He  paid  up  the 
debts  of  New  Harmony,  had  the 
property  surveyed  and  subdivided 
and  then  deeded  it  to  his  children 
and  immediate  relatives  and  a  few 
of  the  "staunch  friends  who  have 
such  a  lavish  and  unwise  faith  in 
my  wisdom" — to  use  his  own  ex- 
pression ^  ^ 

To  give  work  to  the  unemployed 
of  England  now  became  his  immediate  solicitation.  He  was 
sixty  years  old  when  he  inaugurated  his  first  co-operative 
store,  which  in  fact  is  the  parent  of  our  modern  Department 
Store  jt  j» 
34 


ROBERT  OWEN 

In  this  store  he  proposed  to  buy  any  useful  article  or  product 
which  any  man  might  make  or  produce,  figuring  on  cost  of 
the  raw  material  and  six  pence  an  hour  for  labor.  This  labor 
was  to  be  paid  for  in  Labor  Script,  receivable  in  payment 
for  anything  the  man  might  want  to  buy.  Here  we  get  the 
Labor  Exchange  ^  Owen  proposed  that  the  Government 
should  set  delinquent  men  to  work,  instead  of  sending  them 
to  prison.  Any  man  who  would  work,  no  matter  what  he 
had  done,  should  be  made  free.  The  Government  would 
then  pay  the  man  in  Labor  Exchange  Script.  Of  course, 
if  the  Government  guaranteed  the  script,  it  was  real  money ; 
otherwise  it  was  wild-cat  money,  subject  to  fluctuation  and 
depreciation.  Very  naturally  the  Government  refused  to 
guarantee  this  script,  or  to  invest  in  the  co-operative  stores. 
To  make  the  script  valuable,  it  had  to  be  issued  in  the  form 
of  a  note,  redeemable  in  gold  at  a  certain  time. 
The  stores  were  started,  and  many  idle  men  found  work  in 
building  mills  and  starting  various  industries. 
Three  years  passed  and  some  of  the  script  became  due.  It 
was  found  to  be  largely  held  by  saloon-keepers  who  had 
accepted  it  at  half  price.  Efforts  had  been  constantly  made 
to  hurt  Owen's  standing  and  depreciate  the  market  value 
of  this  currency. 

The  Labor  Exchange  that  had  issued  the  script  was  a 
corporation,  and  Robert  Owen  was  not  individually  liable, 
but  he  stepped  into  the  breach  and  paid  every  penny  out 
of  his  own  purse,  saying,  '*No  man  shall  ever  say  that  he 
lost  money  by  following  my  plans." 

35 


ROBERT  OWEN 

Next  he  founded  the  co-operative  village  of  Harmony  or 
Queenswood.  The  same  general  plan  that  he  had  followed 
at  New  Lanark  was  here  carried  out,  save  that  he  endeavored 
to  have  the  mill  owned  by  the  workers  instead  of  by  outside 
capital  ^  ^ 

Through  his  very  able  leadership,  this  new  venture  continued 
for  ten  years  and  was  indeed  a  school  and  a  workshop.  The 
workers  had  gardens,  flowers,  books.  There  were  debates, 
classes  and  much  intellectual  exercise  that  struck  sparks 
from  heads  that  were  once  punk.  John  Tyndall  was  one  of 
the  teachers  and  also  a  worker  in  this  mill.  Let  the  fact  stand 
out  that  Owen  discovered  Tyndall — a  great,  divinely  human 
nautilus — and  sent  him  sailing  down  the  tides  of  Time. 
At  eighty  years  of  age,  Owen  appeared  before  the  House 
of  Commons  and  read  a  paper  which  he  had  spent  a  year 
in  preparing — "The  Abolition  of  Poverty  and  Crime."  He 
held  the  Government  responsible  for  both,  and  said  that  until 
the  ruling  class  took  up  the  reform  idea  and  quit  their  policy 
of  palliation,  society  would  wander  in  the  wilderness.  To 
gain  the  Promised  Land  we  must  all  move  together  in  a 
government  "of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the 
people."  He  was  listened  to  with  profound  respect  and  a 
vote  of  thanks  was  tendered  him;  but  his  speech  never 
reached  the  public  printer. 

Robert  Dale  Owen  became  a  naturalized  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  and  for  several  years  was  a  member  of 
Congress.  And  at  the  time  of  the  death  of  his  father  was 
pur  minister  to  Italy,  having  been  appointed  by  President 
36 


B      E 


0      W 


N 


Pierce.  ^  At  the  time  he  was  in  England,  and  announced 
the  passing  of  Robert  Owen  to  the  family  at  New  Harmony, 
Indiana,  in  the  following  letter: 

Newtown,  Wales, 

November  17th,  1858. 
It  is  all  over.  Our  dear  father  passed  away  this  morning, 
at  a  quarter  before  seven,  as  quietly  and  gently  as  if  he  had 
been  falling  asleep.  There  was  not  the  least  struggle,  not 
the  contraction  of  a  limb  or  a  muscle,  not  an  expression 
of  pain  on  his  face.  His  breathing  stopped  so  gradually 
that,  even  as  I  held  his  hand,  I  could  scarcely  tell  the 
moment  when  he  no  longer  lived.  His  last  words,  distinctly 
pronounced  about  twenty  minutes  before  his  death,  were: 
"Relief  has  come." 


37 


will  give  his  Heart  to  Heart  Talk, 
"The  March  of  the  Centuries,"  as  follows: 

ST.  LOUIS,  MO.— Friday  Evening,  February  12th.  Fine 

Arts,  "Memorial  Hall,"  Locust  and  19th  St.  Seats  on 

sale  at  Bollman  Bros.  Piano  Co.,  1120  Olive  St. 
PIITSBURG,    PA.— Tuesday    Evening,    February    23rd. 

Carnegie  Hall,   (North  Side).  Seats   on  sale  at  Boggs 

&  Buhl's  Book  Department  one  week  in  advance. 
BOSTON,  MASS.— Thursday  Evening,  March  4th.  Chick- 

ering   Hall,   Huntington   Ave.   Seats   on    sale    at   Box 

Office. 
PHILADELPHIA,  PA.— Friday  Evening,  March  the  19th. 

Witherspoon  Hall,  Walnut,  Juniper  and  Sansom  Sts. 

Seats  on  sale  at  John  Wanamaker's  Book  Department. 
NEW   YORK    CITY— Sunday    Evening,  March    28th. 

Carnegie  Hall,  53rd  and  7th  Ave.  Seats  on  sale  at  Box 

Office  one  week  in  advance. 
CHICAGO,   ILL.— Sunday  Afternoon  at  Three  o'Clock, 

April  4th.   Studebaker  Theatre.  Seats   at  Box   Office. 
DENVER,  COL.— Tuesday  Evening,  April   6th.  Woman's 

Club  Hall,  Glenam  Street.  Seats  on  sale  at  Business 

Office  of  "The  Denver  Post." 
SAN   FRANCISCO,  CAL.— Sunday  Afternoon,  at  Three 

o'clock,  April  11th.  Van  Ness  Theatre,  Van  Ness  Ave. 

Seats   on   sale  at  Box    Office  one   week  in   advance. 

On  these  Joyous  Occasions  named  above,  the  Price  of  Reserved 
Seats  will  be  just  Fifty  Cents,  and  no  more.  The  best  seats 
will  be  sold  to  those  Wise  Children  of  Light  who  first  apply 


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ifflQDZm 


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A  Message  to  Garcia 

was  first  printed  in  The  Philistine  of  March,  1899.  The 
merit  of  the  article  was  instantly  recognized,  and  the 
edition  disappeared  ^  The  article  was  then  reprinted  by 
George  H.  Daniels  of  the  New  York  Central  Lines,  and  over 
three  million  copies  were  distributed.  It  was  also  reprinted 
by  the  Westinghouse  Company  in  England.  In  France, 
the  Bon  Marche  of  Paris  distributed  a  million  copies. 
Prince  Hilakoff,  Director  of  Railways  in  Russia,  translated 
the  essay  into  Russian  and  presented  a  copy  to  every  officer 
in  the  Russian  Army  ^  The  Mikado  of  Japan,  not  to  be 
outdone,  had  the  "Message"  printed  in  Japanese,  and  a 
copy  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  every  Japanese  soldier. 
Q  In  all,  the  ''Message"  has  been  translated  into  eleven 
languages,  and  reprinted  over  twenty-five  million  times.  It 
is  believed  that  it  has  a  wider  circulation  than  any  other 
article  ever  written  by  an  American,  and  a  larger  circula- 
tion in  the  same  space  of  time  than  any  other  article  ever 
produced  in  all  the  history  of  literature  .^  We  have  a 

Few  Volumes  of  the  "Message" 

in  English,  followed  by  the  ''Message"  translated  into 
Japanese,  which  in  turn  is  succeeded  by  the  "Message" 
retranslated  into  English  ^  These  books  are  bound  in 
limp  leather  in  Japanese  style,  to  be  in  keeping  with 
the  text       .         .         .         Price  One  Dollar  by  Mail 

We  also  have  the  Message  in  paper  covers,  price  10c  a  copy 

THE       R  O  Y  C  R  O  F   T   E    R   S 

EAST  AURORA,  ERIE  COUNTY,  NEW  YORK 


Health  and  Wealth 

A  Book  by  Elbert  Hubbard  of  East  Aurora,  New  York 

HEREIN  is  pleasantly  told  how 
to  be  happy — but  not  too  happy 
— and  yet  be  rich;  containing 
thoughts,  always  sincere  and 
sometimes  serious,  concerning 
the  best  methods  of  preventing  one  from 
becoming  a  burden  to  himself,  a  weariness 
to  his  friends,  a  trial  to  his  neighbors  and  a 
reflection  on  his  Maker.  This  volume  tells  of 
Roycroftism.  ^Roycroftism  is  here,  and  it  is 
slowly  but  surely  increasing  in  influence. 
^  Roycroftism  does  not  claim  to  be  a  religion 
— it  is  a  system  of  life.  This  system,  plan, 
method  or  habit,  does  not  seek  to  separate 
religion  from  work,  literature  from  life,  or  art 
from  play,  any  more  than  it  would  separate 
love  from  sociology,  or  ethics  from  finance. 

The  price  of  Health  and  Wealth  is  Two  Dollars,  bound 
either  in  limp  leather  or  in  boards,  leather  back. 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  New  York 


So  here  then  is  a  Hand-Clasp  across  the  fertile  fields  of 
America— NORTH— EAST— SOUTH— WEST  from 

The  Wanamaker  Stores 

PHILADELPHIA        PARIS  NEW  YORK 

0 

The    Great    Stores   of   the    World 

They  invite  you  to  be  their  guests  in  their  great  business  homes  in  New  York 
and  Philadelphia,  whenever  you  visit  these  cities.  The  Wanamaker  salesmen 
and  salesgirls  constitute  a  big,  happy  family,  and  they  '11  greet  you  as  a  friend 
when  you  pay  them  a  visit,  fl  These  folks  invite  you  to  inspect  the  largest 
buildings  in  the  World  devoted  exclusively  to  retail  merchandizing;  to  make 
yourself  at  home;  to  use  the  free  conveniences  of  the  stores;  to  attend  the  free 
entertainments  in  the  great  Wanamaker  Auditoriums,  and  listen  to  the  great 
pipe-organs,  among  the  largest  and  sweetest-toned  instruments  ever  erected; 
to  see  and  enjoy  the  quarter-million  dollar  "House  Palatial"  built  of  solid 
masonry— into  the  New  York  Store.  They  want  you  to  make  one  day  a 
Wanamaker  Day  when  next  you  come  to  town,  flin  the  meantime,  just  to  get 
acquainted,  they  invite  you  to  send  your  name  and  address,  clearly  written  on 
a  postcard,  and  they  will  send  you,  absolutely  free,  their  handsomely  illustrated 
store  catalogues,  leaflets,  booklets  and  other  business  literature  and  descriptions 
of  these  marvelous  stores,  whose  service  will  thus  be  brought 

DIRECT    HOMETOYOU 

Every  post-oflSce  is  a  branch  of  the  Wanamaker  Stores,  and  every  man  who 
totes  an  Uncle  Samuel  mail-bag  is  glad  to  carry  a  ^anamaker  package  to 
your  home.  ^SpecisJ  Announcement: — ^The  Wanamaker  Stores,  having 
bought  the  factory  and  good-will  of  the  SCHOMACKER  GOLD-STRING 
PIANO  also  invite  you  to  send  for  the  illustrated  catalogue  of  this 

PIANO  OF  THE   PRESIDENTS 

The  piano  that  Lincoln  used,  and  Grant,  and  Hayes  and  Garfield.  The  piano 
that  is  more  substantial  in  cbnstruction  than  any  other  piano,  and  whose  tone 
is  not  surpassed  by  any — and  yet,  whose  price  is  moderate,  and  may  be  paid 
for  a  little  at  a  time,  on  the  partial  payment  plan,  originated  by  the  Wana- 
maker Stores,  fl Write  to  Wanamaker 's  TO-DAY,  and  keep  in  touch  with  the 
WORLD!    q Address  either    PHILADELPHIA  or   NEW    YORK    CITY 

JOHN     WANAMAKER 

Philadelphia  WANAMAKER  SQUARE  New  York 

Everybody  who  is    anybody   trades   with — Wanamaker 


X? 


ELBERT   HUBBARD 


iiouRnrY:^ 


[TO  THE  HOhflF^T^ 


BOOK  •  RY-TFn=l 


^  g  '^■'^■i^j''  'I^Tig  S  E  S(  g 


EHaZHEE3KH 


fflffl^^^z^ffl^: 


The  sluggard  will  not  plow  by  reason  of  the  cold ;  therefore 
shall  he  beg  in  harvest. 

— Proverbs  20:4 


You  benefit  yourself  only  as  you  benefit  humanity. 

—James  Oliver. 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 


AMES  OLIVER  was  born  in  Rox- 
buryshire,  Scotland,  August  the 
28th,  1823.  He  died  March  2nd, 
1908.  He  was  the  youngest  of  a 
brood  of  eight — six  boys  and  two 
girls  t^  He  was  "the  last  run  of 
shad, "  to  use  the  phrase  of  Theo- 
dore Parker,  who  had  a  similar 
honor  jf^  Just  why  the  youngest 
should  eclipse  the  rest,  as  occa- 
sionally happens,  is  explained  by 
Dr.  Tilden  on  the  hypothesis  that 
a  mother  gives  this  last  little  surprise  party  an  amount  of 
love  and  tenderness  not  vouchsafed  to  the  rest. 
Let  the  philosophers  philosophize — ^we  deal  with  facts  not 
theories,  and  no  one  will  deny  that  James  Oliver  was  a 
very  potent,  huir^an  and  stubborn  fact.  He  was  Scotch. 
ClHis  father  was  a  shepherd  on  a  landed  estate,  where  the 
noses  of  the  sheep  grew  sharp  that  they  might  feed  between 
the  stones.  The  family  was  very  poor,  but  poverty  in  the 
old  world  grows  into  a  habit,  and  so  the  Olivers  did  not 
suffer.  They  huddled  close  for  warmth  in  their  little  cottage 
and  were  grateful  for  porritch  and  s'leHer. 
In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Thirty,  the  oldest  boy,  John, 
filled  with  the  spirit  of  unrest,  tied  up  all  of  his  earthly 
goods  in  a  red  handkerchief  and  came  to  America. 
He  found  work  at  a  dollar  a  day,  and  wrote  glowing  letters 
home  of  a  country  where  no  one  picked  up  faggots  for  fires, 
but  where  forests  were  actually  in  the  way.  He  also  declared 
that  he  ate  at  his  employer's  table,  and  they  had  meat  three 
times  a  week.  Of  course  he  had  meat  three  times  a  day,  but 

39 


JAM  ES  ^®  ^^  ^'*  want  to  run  the  risk  of  being  placed  in  tlie  Ananias 

OLIVER  ^^^^  ^y  telling  the  truth.  ^A  little  later  Andrew  and  Jane, 

the  next  in  point  of  age,  came  too,  and  slipped  at  once 

into  money-making  jobs,  piling  up  wealth  at  the  rate  of  three 

dollars  a  week. 

When  three  of  a  brood  have  gone  from  the  home  nest, 
they  pull  hard  on  the  heartstrings  of  the  mother.  Women, 
at  the  last,  have  more  courage  than  men — ^when  they  have. 
^  Partnerships  are  very  seldom  equal  partnerships — one 
takes  the  lead.  In  this  case  the  gray  mare  was  the  better 
horse,  and  James  Oliver  got  his  initiative  from  his  mother. 
^  **We  are  all  going  to  America,"  the  mother  would  say. 
^  And  then  the  worthy  shepherd-man  would  give  a  hundred 
and  fifty  reasons  why  it  was  impossible. 
He  had  become  pot-bound.  Fear  and  inertia  had  him  by 
the  foot.  He  was  too  old  to  try  to  do  anything  but  care  for 
sheep,  he  pleaded. 

And  persistently,  as  she  knitted  furiously,  the  mother  would 
repeat,  "We  are  all  going  to  America!" 
Little  Jamie  was  eleven  years  old.  He  was  a  swart  and  sandy 
little  Scot,  with  freckles,  a  fidl  moon  face  and  a  head  of 
towsled  hair  that  defied  the  comb. 

**We  are  all  going  to  America,"  echoed  Jamie — **we  are 
going  to  America  to  make  our  fortunes." 
John,  Andrew  and  Jane  had  sent  back  real  money — they 
must  have  earned  it.  All  the  debts  were  cleaned  up,  and  the 
things  they  had  borrowed  were  returned.  The  mother  took 
charge  and  sold  all  the  little  surplus  belongings,  and  the 
day  came  when  they  locked  the  door  of  the  old  stone  cottage 
and  took  the  key  to  the  landlord  in  his  big  house  and  left  it. 
^  They  rode  away  in  a  kind  neighbor's  cart,  bound  for  the  sea- 
coast.  Everybody  cried  but  Jamie.  It  was  glorious  to  go  away, 
such  wonderful  things  cotdd  be  seen  all  along  the  route. 
40 


l^m^'W^^ 


4p/mzd 


&Sm 


^  They  took  passage  in  a  sailing  ship  crowded  with  emigrants.     JAMES 
It  was  a  stormy  trip.  Everybody  was  sick.  Several  died,  and     OLIVER 
there  were  burials  at  sea  when  the  plank  was  tilted  and  the 
body  slid  into  the  yeasty  deep. 

Jamie  got  into  trouble  once  by  asking  how  the  dead  man 
could  ever  be  found  when  it  came  Judgment-day.  And 
also  the  captain  got  after  him  with  a  rope's  end  because 
he  scrambled  upon  the  quarter-deck  when  the  mate  went 
aft.  The  disposition  to  take  charge  was  even  then  germinating ; 
and  he  asked  more  questions  than  ten  men  could  answer. 
^Once  when  the  hatches  were  battened  down,  and  the  angry 
waves  washed  the  deck,  and  the  elder  Oliver  prophesied  that 
all  were  soon  going  to  Davy  Jones*  locker,  Jamie  reported 
that  the  sailors  on  deck  were  swearing,  and  all  took  courage. 
fl  The  storm  blew  over,  as  storms  usually  do,  and  the  friendly 
shores  of  America  came  in  sight. 

There  were  prayer-meetings  on  deck,  and  songs  of  thanks- 
giving were  sung  as  the  ship  tacked  slowly  up  the  Narrows. 
^  Some  of  our  ancestors  landed  at  Jamestown,  some  at 
Plymouth  Rock  and  some  at  Castle  Garden.  If  the  last 
named  had  less  to  boast  of  in  way  of  ancestry,  they  had 
fewer  follies  to  explain  away  than  either  of  the  others. 
They  may  have  fallen  on  their  knees,  but  they  did  not  fall 
on  the  aborigines.  They  were  for  the  most  part  friendly, 
kind  and  full  of  the  right  spirit — the  spirit  of  helpfulness. 
^  At  Castle  Garden,  one  man  gave  Jamie  an  orange  and 
another  man  gave  him  a  kick.  He  never  forgot  either,  and 
would  tmdoubtedly  have  paid  both  parties  back,  if  he  had 
met  them  in  later  life. 

There  was  a  trip  to  Albany  by  a  steamboat,  the  first  our 
friends  had  ever  seen.  It  burned  wood,  and  stopped  every 
few  miles  for  fuel.  They  ate  brown  bread  and  oatmeal,  and 
at  New  York  bought  some  smoked  bear's  meat  and  venison. 

41 


JAMES     At  Albany  an  Indian  sold  them  sassafras  for  tea,  also  some 
OLIVER     dried  blackberries — it  was  a  regular  feast. 

At  Albany  there  was  a  wonderful  invention,  a  railroad.  The 
coaches  ran  up  the  hill  without  horses  or  an  engine,  and 
the  father  explained  that  it  was  n't  a  miracle  either.  A  long 
rope  ran  around  a  big  wheel  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  there 
was  a  car  ran  down  the  hill  as  another  one  ran  up. 
The  railroad  extended  to  Schenectady — sixteen  miles  away 
— and  the  trip  was  made  in  less  than  half  a  day  if  the  weather 
was  good.  There  they  transferred  to  a  canal-boat.  They  had 
no  money  to  pay  for  a  stateroom,  and  so  camped  on  deck — 
it  was  lots  of  fun.  Jamie  then  and  there  decided  that  some 
day  he  would  be  the  captain  of  a  fast  packet  on  a  raging 
canal.  His  fond  hope  was  never  realized. 
After  the  cooped-up  quarters  on  the  ocean  the  smoothness 
and  freedom  of  the  Erie  Canal  were  heavenly.  They  saw 
birds  and  squirrels  and  once  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  wolf. 
At  Montezuma  they  changed  canal-boats,  because  the  craft 
they  were  on  went  through  to  Buffalo,  and  they  wished  to  go 
to  Geneva  where  John,  Andrew  and  Jane  were  getting  rich. 
^  Two  miles  out  of  Geneva  the  boat  slowed  up,  a  plank  was 
run  out  and  all  went  ashore.  John  worked  for  a  farmer  a 
mile  away.  They  foimd  him.  And  in  the  dusty  road  another 
prayer-meeting  was  held,  when  everybody  kneeled  and 
thanked  God  that  the  long  journey  was  ended.  Paterfamilias 
had  predicted  they  would  never  arrive,  but  he  was  wrong. 
^  The  next  day  they  saw  Andrew  and  Jane,  and  tears  of  joy 
were  rained  down  everybody's  back.  Now  for  the  first  time 
they  had  plenty  to  eat — meat  every  meal,  potatoes,  onions 
and  corn  on  the  ear.  There  is  no  corn  in  Scotland,  and  Jamie 
thought  that  corn  on  the  ear  was  merely  a  new  way  of  cook- 
ing beans.  He  cleaned  off  the  cob  and  then  sent  the  stick 
back  to  have  it  refilled. 
42 


America  was  a  wonderful  cotintry,  and  Brother  John  had  not 
really  half  told  the  truth  about  it.  Jamie  got  a  job  at  fifty 
cents  a  week  with  board.  Fifty  cents  was  a  great  deal  more 
than  half  a  dollar — I  guess  so !  He  woxild  have  been  paid  more 
only  the.  farmer  said  he  was  a  greenhorn  and  could  n*t  speak 
English.  Jamie  inwardly  resented  and  denied  both  accusa- 
tions, but  kept  silent  for  fear  he  might  lose  his  job.  His  only 
sorrow  was  that  he  could  only  see  his  mother  once  a  week. 
His  chief  care  was  as  to  what  he  should  do  with  his  money. 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


N  the  fall  of  Eighteen  Hundred 
and  Thirty-six,  there  were  several 
Scotch  families  going  from  Geneva 
to  the  "Far  West"— that  is  to  say, 
Indiana.  The  Oliver  family  was 
induced  to  go,  too,  because  in 
Indiana  the  Government  was  giv- 
ing away  farms  to  any  one  who 
would  live  on  them  and  hold  them 
down  J>  J. 

They  settled  first  in  Lagrange 
County,  and  later  moved  to  Mish- 
awaka,  St.  Joseph  County,  where  Andrew  Oliver  had  taken 
up  his  abode.  Mishawaka  was  a  thriving  little  city,  made  so 
largely  by  the  fact  that  iron  ore — bog  iron — was  being  found 
thereabouts.  The  town  was  on  the  St.  Joseph  River,  right  on 
the  line  of  transportation,  and  boats  were  poled  down  and 
up,  clear  to  Lake  Michigan.  It  was  much  easier  and  cheaper 
to  pole  a  boat  than  to  drive  a  wagon  through  the  woods  and 

43 


JAMES  across  the  muddy  prairies.  Mishawaka  was  going  to  be  a  great 
OLIVER  *^^*y — everybody  said  so.  ^  There  was  a  good  log  schoolhouse 
at  Mishawaka,  kept  by  a  worthy  man  by  the  name  of  Merri- 
field,  who  knew  how  to  use  the  birch.  Here  James  went  to 
school  for  just  one  winter — that  was  his  entire  schooling, 
although  he  was  a  student  and  a  learner  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
^The  elder  Oliver  fell  sick  of  chills  and  fever.  He  sort  of 
languished  for  the  hills  of  bonny  Scotlando  He  could  not 
adapt  himself  to  pioneer  life,  and  in  the  fall  of  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Thirty-seven,  he  died.  This  was  the  end  of  a 
school  education  for  James — he  had  to  go  to  work  earning 
money.  He  became  the  little  father  of  the  family,  which 
James  J.  Hill  says  is  the  luckiest  thing  that  can  happen 
to  a  boy.  He  hired  out  for  six  dollars  a  month,  and  at  the 
end  of  every  month  took  five  dollars  home  to  his  mother. 
^  Jamie  was  fourteen,  and  could  do  a  man's  work  at  most 
anything  ^  **He  has  a  man's  appetite  at  least,"  said  the 
farmer's  wife,  for  he  took  dinner  with  the  man  he  worked 
for.  He  soon  proved  he  could  do  a  man's  work,  too.  This 
man  had  a  pole  boat  on  the  river,  and  James  was  given  a 
chance  to  try  his  seamanship.  He  might  have  settled  down 
for  life  as  a  poleman,  but  he  saw  little  chance  for  promotion, 
and  he  wanted  to  work  at  something  that  would  fit  him  for 
a  better  job.  Then  the  worst  about  life  on  the  river  was  that 
each  poleman  was  paid  a  portion  of  his  wages  in  whiskey, 
and  the  rivermen  seemed  intent  on  drinking  the  stills  dry. 
James  not  only  had  a  strong  desire  to  be  decent,  but  liked 
to  be  with  decent  people. 

Now  in  Mishawaka  there  were  some  very  fine  folks — the 
family  of  Joseph  Doty,  for  instance.  The  Dotys  lived  in  a 
two-story  house  and  had  a  picket  fence.  James  had  dug  a 
ditch  for  Mr.  Doty,  and  split  out  shingles  for  a  roof  for  the 
Doty  bam.  At  such  times  he  got  his  dinner  at  Doty's,  for 
44 


it  was  the  rule  then  that  you  always  had  to  feed  your  help,    JAMES 
no  matter  who  they  were,  just  as  you  feed  the  threshers    OLIVEF 
and  harvesters  and  silo  men  now. 

About  this  time,  James  began  to  put  bear's  grease  on  his 
unruly  shock  of  yellow  hair,  and  tried  to  part  it  and  bring  it 
down  in  a  nice  smooth  pat  on  the  side.  That  *s  a  sure  sign ! 
flThe  few  who  noticed  the  change  said  it  was  all  on  account 
of  Susan  Doty.  Once  when  Susan  passed  the  johnnycake 
to  James,  he  emptied  the  whole  plate  in  his  lap,  to  his  eternal 
shame  and  the  joy  of  the  whole  town,  that  soon  heard  of  it 
through  a  talkative  hired  man  who  was  present  and  laughed 
uproariously — as  hired  men  are  apt  to  do. 
James  once  heard  Susan  say  that  she  did  n't  like  rivermen, 
and  that  is  probably  the  reason  James  quit  the  river,  but  he 
did  n't  tell  her  so — not  then  at  least. 

He  got  a  job  in  the  iron  mill  and  learned  to  smelt  iron,  and 
he  became  a  pretty  good  molder,  too.  Then  the  hard  times 
came  on,  and  the  iron  mill  shut  down.  But  there  was  a 
cooper's  shop  in  town,  and  James  was  already  very  handy 
with  a  drawshave  in  getting  out  staves.  Most  of  the  men 
worked  by  the  day,  but  he  asked  to  work  by  the  piece.  They 
humored  him  and  he  made  over  two  dollars  a  day. 
Joseph  Doty  was  a  subscriber  to  "Gleason's  Pictorial"  and 
**Godey's  Lady's  Book."  They  also  had  bound  copies  of 
"Poor  Richard's  Almanac"  and   "The  Spectator,"  with 
nearly  forty  other  books  beside. 
James  Oliver  read  them  all — with  Susan's  !ielp. 
Then  something  terrible  happened!  The  young  rolks  suddenly 
discovered  that  they  were  very  much  in  love  v  ith  each  other. 
The  Doty  family  saw  it,  too,  and  disapproved. 
The  Dotys  were  English,  but  as  the  family  had  been  in 
America  for  a  century,  that  made  a  big  difference. 
Susan  was  the  handsomest  and  smartest  girl  in  town — 

45 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


everybody  said  so.  She  seemed  much  older  tnan  James 
Oliver,  but  the  fact  was  they  were  of  the  same  age.  The 
Doty  family  objected  to  the  match,  but  Doty  the  Elder 
one  day  dropped  a  hint  that  if  that  young  Oliver  owned 
a  house  to  take  his  wife  to,  he  might  consider  the  matter. 
fl[The  news  reached  Oliver.  He  knew  of  a  man  who  wanted 
to  sell  his  house,  as  he  was  going  to  move  to  a  town  called 
Fort  Dearborn — now  known  as  Chicago — that  had  recently 
been  incorporated  and  had  nearly  a  thousand  inhabitants. 
The  house  was  a  well  built  cottage — not  very  large  but  big 
enough  for  two.  It  was  a  slab  house,  with  a  mud  chimney 
and  a  nice  floor  of  pounded  blue  clay.  It  had  two  rooms,  a 
cupboard  across  the  corner,  a  loft  to  store  things  in,  and  forty 
wooden  pegs  to  hang  things  on.  The  owner  was  going  away 
and  would  sell  the  house  for  twenty  dollars  and  throw  in 
the  lot — which  was  really  worth  nothing,  because  there  was 
so  much  out-of-doors  to  spare  in  Indiana  at  that  time. 
^Oliver  offered  the  man  eighteen  dollars  for  the  mansion, 
cash  down.  The  offer  was  accepted,  the  money  paid  and  the 
receipt  was  duly  shown  to  Joseph  Doty,  Esq. 
And  so  James  and  Susan  were  married  on  May  the  Thirtieth, 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Forty-four,  and  all  Mishawaka  gave 
them  a  "  shower. "  To  say  that  they  lived  happily  ever 
afterward  would  be  trite,  but  also  it  would  be  true. 


46 


AMES  OLIVER  was  thirty-two 
years  old  before  he  really  struck 
his  pace.  He  had  worked  at  the 
cooper's  trade,  at  molding  and 
farming  ^  ^ 

His  twenty-dollar  house  at  Mish- 
awaka  had  transformed  itself  into 
one  worth  a  thousand,  fully  paid 
for.  The  God's  half -acre  had  become 
a  quarter-section. 
His  wife  had  beauty  and  compe- 
tence, two  things  which  do  not 
always  go  together  jfc  She  was  industrious,  economical, 
intelligent  and  ambitious.  She  was  a  helpmeet  in  all  that 
the  word  implies.  The  man  whose  heart  is  at  rest  is  the  only 
one  who  can  win.  Jealousy  gnaws.  Doubt  disrupts.  But  love 
and  faith  mean  sanity,  strength,  usefulness  and  length  of 
days.  The  man  who  succeeds  is  that  one  who  is  helped  by 
a  good  woman. 

Two  children  had  come  to  them.  These  were  Joseph  D. 
and  Josephine.  Napoleon  was  always  a  hero  to  James  Oliver 
— his  courage,  initiative  and  welling  sense  of  power,  more 
than  his  actual  deeds,  were  the  attraction.  The  Empress 
Josephine  was  a  better  woman  than  Napoleon  was  a  man, 
contended  Susan.  Susan  was  right  and  James  acknowledged 
it,  so  the  girl  baby  was  named  Josephine.  The  boy  was  named 
Joseph,  in  honor  of  his  grandfather  Doty  who  had  passed 
away;  but  who,  before  his  passing,  had  come  to  see  that 
Nature  was  nearer  right  than  he  had  been. 
Children  should  exercise  great  care  in  the  selection  of  their 
parents.  Very,  very  few  children  are  ever  dowered  with  a 
love  that  makes  for  strength  of  head,  hand  and  heart,  as 
were  these.  §In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty-five,  James 

47 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


JAMES  Oliver  was  over  to  South  Bend,  a  town  that  had  started  up  a 
OLIVER  few  miles  down  the  river  from  Mishawaka,  and  accidentally 
met  a  man  who  wanted  to  sell  his  one-fourth  interest  in  a 
foimdry.  He  would  sell  at  absolutely  inventory  value.  They 
made  an  inventory  and  the  one-fourth  came  to  just  eighty- 
eight  dollars  and  ninety-six  cents.  Oliver  had  a  hundred 
dollars  in  his  pocket,  and  paid  the  man  at  once. 
Cast-iron  plows  formed  one  item  of  this  little  foundry's 
work.  Oliver,  being  a  farmer,  knew  plows — and  knew  that 
there  was  not  a  good  plow  in  the  world.  Where  others  saw 
and  accepted,  he  rebelled.  He  insisted  that  an  approximately 
perfect  plow  could  be  made.  He  realized  that  a  good  plow 
should  stay  in  the  grotmd  without  wearing  out  the  man 
at  the  handles. 

The  man  who  has  n't  been  jerked  up  astride  of  plow  handles 
or  been  flung  into  the  furrow  by  a  balky  plow  has  never  had 
his  vocabulary  tested. 

Oliver  had  a  theory  that  the  plow  should  be  as  light  in  weight 
as  was  consistent  with  endurance  and  good  work,  and  that  a 
moldboard  shotdd  scour,  so  as  to  turn  the  soil  with  a  singing 
sound;  then  the  share,  or  cutting  edge,  must  be  made 
separate  from  the  moldboard  so  as  to  be  easily  and  cheaply 
replaced.  A  plow  could  be  made  that  need  n't  be  fought  to 
keep  it  furrow-wise. 

Without  tiring  the  reader  with  mechanical  details,  let  the 
fact  be  stated  that  after  twelve  years  of  experimenting — 
planning,  dreaming,  thinking,  working,  striving,  often 
perplexed,  disappointed  and  ridiculed — James  Oliver  perfected 
his  Chilled  Plow.  He  had  a  moldboard  nearly  as  bright  as  a 
diamond  and  about  as  hard,  one  that  "sang"  at  its  work. 
Instead  of  a  dead  pull,  **it  sort  of  sails  through  the  soil," 
a  surprised  farmer  said.  To  be  exact,  it  reduced  the  draft 
on  the  team  from  twenty  per  cent  to  one-half,  depending 
4« 


upon  the  nature  of  the  soil.  It  was  the  difference  between 
pulling  a  low-wheel  lumber  wagon,  and  riding  in  a  buggy 
with  your  girl.  Then  the  old  share,  if  worn,  could  be  replaced 
by  the  farmer  himself,  without  even  calling  on  the  local 
blacksmith  J^  ^ 

From  this  on,  the  business  grew  slowly,  steadily,  surely. 
James  Oliver  anticipated  that  other  plow-wise  Scot,  Andrew 
Carnegie,  who  said,  "Young  man,  put  all  of  your  eggs  in 
one  basket  and  then  watch  the  basket." 
On  this  policy  has  the  Oliver  Chilled  Plow  Works  been  built 
up  and  maintained,  until  the  plant  now  covers  seventy-five 
acres,  with  a  floor  space  of  over  thirty  acres  and  a  capacity  of 
over  half  a  million  plows  a  year.  The  enterprise  supplies  bread 
and  butter  to  over  twenty  thousand  mouths,  and  is  without  a 
serious  rival  in  its  chosen  field.  If  the  horse  tribe  could  speak, 
it  would  arise  and  whinny  paeons  to  the  name  of  Oliver, 
joining  in  the  chorus  of  farmers.  For  a  moldboard  that 
always  scours  gives  a  peace  to  a  farmer  like  unto  that  given 
to  a  prima  donna  by  a  dress  that  fits  in  the  back. 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


HILE  James  Oliver  was  not  a 
distinctively  religious  man,  yet 
many  passages  of  Scripture  that 
he  had  learned  at  his  mother's 
knee  clung  to  him  through  his 
long  life  and  leaped  easily  to  his 
tongue.  One  of  his  favorite  and 
oft  quoted  verses  was  this  from 
Isaiah,  **And  they  shall  beat  their 
swords  into  plowshares,  and  their 
spears  into  pnming-hooks :  nation 
shall   not  lift  up  sword  against 


nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more. " 


49 


JAMES     The  Big  Idea  of  chilled  metal  for  the  moldboard  of  a  plow, 
OLIVER     probably  had  its  germ  in  the  mind  of  James  Oliver  from  this 
very  passage  of  Scripture. 

"When  Cincinnatus  left  his  plow  in  the  field  to  go  in  defense 
of  his  country,  his  excuse  was  the  only  one  that  could  pardon 
such  a  breach, "  he  once  said. 

Oliver  hated  war;  his  bent  was  for  the  peaceful  arts — that 
which  would  give  fruits  and  flowers  and  better  homes  for  the 
people ;  love,  joy  and  all  that  makes  for  the  good  of  women 
and  children  and  those  who  have  lived  long.  James  Oliver 
loved  old  people  and  he  loved  children.  He  realized  that  the 
awful  burdens  and  woes  of  war  fall  on  the  innocent  and  the 
helpless.  And  so  the  business  of  converting  sword  metal  into 
plow  metal  made  an  appeal  to  him.  Being  a  metal-worker 
and  knowing  much  of  the  history  of  the  metals,  he  knew  of 
the  "Toledo  blade" — that  secret  and  marvellous  invention 
with  its  tremendous  strength,  keen  cutting  edge  and  lightness. 
To  make  a  moldboard  as  finely  tempered  in  its  way  as  a 
"Toledo  blade,"  was  his  ambition. 

He  used  to  declare  that  the  secret  of  the  sword  makers  of 
old  Toledo  in  Spain  was  his  secret,  too.  Whether  this  was 
absolutely  true  is  not  for  us  to  question;  perhaps  a  little 
egotism  in  a  man  of  this  character  should  be  allowable. 
Cast-iron  plows,  as  well  as  the  steel  plows  of  that  date, 
were  very  heavy,  wore  out  rapidly — the  metal  being  soft — 
and  did  n*t  "scour, "  excepting  in  the  purer  sands  and  gravels. 
The  share  and  moldboard  quickly  accumulated  soil,  and 
increased  the  "draft,"  forced  the  plow  out  of  the  ground, 
destroyed  the  regularity  of  the  furrows,  killed  the  horses 
and  the  temper  of  the  farmer.  Every  few  minutes  the  plowman 
had  to  scrape  off  the  soil  from  the  moldboard  with  his 
boot-heel,  or  stick,  or  paddle. 

When  a  local  rival  fitted  out  a  plow  with  a  leather  pocket 
50 


tacked  on  to  his  plow-beam,  and  offered  to  give  a  paddle  JAMES 
with  every  plow,  James  Oliver  laughed  aloud.  **I  give  no  OLIVER 
paddles,  because  I  do  not  believe  in  them,  either  for  punish- 
ment or  plow  use — my  plows  and  my  children  do  not  need 
paddles, ''  was  his  remark. 

The  one  particular  thing — the  Big  Idea — in  the  Oliver  Plow 
was  the  chilled  moldboard.  Chilling  the  iron,  by  having  a 
compartment  of  water  adjoining  the  casting  clay,  gives  a 
temper  to  the  metal  that  can  be  attained  in  no  other  way. 
To  produce  a  chilled  moldboard  was  the  one  particular 
achievement  of  James  Oliver.  Others  had  tried  it,  but  the 
sudden  cooling  of  the  metal  had  caused  the  moldboard  to 
warp  and  lose  its  shape,  and  all  good  plowmen  know  that 
a  moldboard  has  to  have  a  form  as  exact  in  its  way  as  the 
back  of  a  violin,  otherwise  it  simply  pushes  its  way  through 
the  ground,  gathering  soil  and  rubbish  in  front  of  it,  until 
horses,  lines,  lash  and  cuss  words  drop  in  despair,  and  give 
it  up.  The  desirable  and  necessary  thing  was  to  preserve  the 
exact  and  delicate  shape^of  the  moldboard  so  that  it  would 
scour  as  bright  as  a  new  silver  dollar  in  any  soil,  rolling  and 
tossing  the  dirt  from  it.  QAn  Oliver  moldboard  has  little 
checkerboard  lines  across  it.  These  come  from  marks  in  the 
mold,  made  to  allow  the  gas  to  escape  when  the  metal  is 
chilled,  and  thus  all  warping  and  twisting  is  prevented. 
Morse,  in  inventing  the  telegraph  key,  worked  out  his  miracle 
of  dot  and  dash  in  a  single  night.  The  thought  came  to  him 
that  electricity  flowed  in  a  continuous  current,  and  that  by 
breaking  or  intercepting  this  current,  a  flash  of  light  could 
be  made  or  a  lever  moved.  Then  these  breaks  in  the  current 
could  stand  for  letters  or  words.  It  was  a  very  simple  propo- 
sition, so  simple  that  men  marveled  that  no  one  had  ever 
thought  of  it  before. 

Watt's  discovery  of  the  expansive  power  of  steam  was  made 

51 


JAMES  111  watching  the  cover  of  his  mother's  teakettle  vibrate  jt 
OLIVER  Gutenberg^s  invention  of  printing  from  movable  type,  Ark- 
w^'ght  with  his  spinning- jenny  and  Eli  Whitney  with  his 
cotton-gin,  worked  on  mechanical  principles  that  were  very 
simple — after  they  were  explained.  Exactly  so! 
Oliver's  invention  was  a  simple  one,  but  tremendously  effective . 
When  we  consider  that  one-half  of  our  population  is  farmers, 
and  that  sixty  per  cent  of  the  annual  wealth  of  the  world  is 
the  production  of  men  who  follow  the  fresh  furrow,  we  see 
how  mighty  and  far-reaching  is  an  invention  that  lightens 
labor,  as  this  most  efficient  tool  certainly  does. 
Accidentally,  I  found  an  interesting  item  on  page  two  hundred 
and  seventy-six,  of  the  Senate  Report  of  the  Forty-fifth  Con- 
gress. Mr.  Coffin,  statistician,  was  testifying  as  an  expert  on  the 
value  of  patents  to  the  people.  Mr.  Coffin  says,  "My  estimate 
h  that  for  a  single  year,  if  all  of  the  farmers  in  the  United 
States  had  used  the  Oliver  Chilled  Plows,  instead  of  the 
regular  steel  or  iron  plow,  the  saving  in  labor  would  have 
totaled  the  sum  of  forty-five  million  dollars." 
When  the  papers  announced  the  passing  of  James  Oliver 
some  of  them  stated  that,  "He  was  probably  the  richest 
man  in  Indiana."  This  fact,  of  itself,  would  not  make  him 
worthy  of  the  world's  special  attention.  There  are  two  things 
we  want  to  know  about  a  very  rich  man:  How  did  he  get 
his  wealth?  and.  What  is  he  doing  with  it?  But  the  fact  that 
wealth  was  not  the  end  or  aim  of  this  man,  that  riches  came 
to  him  merely  as  an  incident  of  human  service,  and  that  his 
wealth  was  used  to  give  paying  employment  to  a  vast  army 
of  workmen,  makes  the  name  of  Oliver  one  that  merits 
our  remembrance. 

James  Oliver  worked  for  one  thing  and  got  another. 
We  lose  that  for  which  we  clutch.  The  hot  attempt  to  secure 
a  thing  sets  in  motion  an  opposition  which  defeats  us.  All 
52 


the  beautiful  rewards  of  life  come  by  indirection,  and  are 
the  incidental  results  of  simply  doing  your  work  up  to  your 
highest  and  best.  The  striker,  with  a  lust  for  more  money 
and  shorter  hours,  the  party  who  wears  the  face  off  the  clock 
and  the  man  with  a  continual  eye  on  the  pay  envelope,  all 
have  their  reward — and  it  is  mighty  small.  Nemesis  with 
her  barrel  stave  lies  in  wait  for  them  around  the  corner. 
They  get  what  is  coming  to  them. 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


AMES  OLIVER  was  the  inventor  of 
an  implement  which  is  supplied 
to  the  user  at  a  moderate  cost  Ji> 
This  tool — one  particular  pattern 
of  Oliver  Plow — has  been  made  for 
over  forty  years,  better  finished  and 
lightened  possibly,  but  unchanged 
in  style  and  design.  This  plow  has 
been  used  and  is  still  being  used 
in  every  corner  of  the  wide  world 
where  men  tickle  the  soil  that  it 
may  laugh  a  harvest.  Hundreds 
of  attempts  have  been  made  to  improve  on  this  plow,  to  change 
or  modify  it.  Oliver  himself  tried  to  revise  it,  but  the  so-called 
improvements  were  eliminated  by  time  and  the  plow  reverted 
to  type.  And  it  remains  to-day  the  biggest  seller  in  the  plow 
world.  Elderly  men  come  now  to  buy  this  plow  that  they 
used  in  boyhood  and  refuse  to  take  any  other.  In  fact,  the 
present  writer  recently  bought  one  of  these  plows — an  exact 
duplicate  of  one  he  used  in  McLean  County,  Illinois,  in  1869. 

S3 


JAMES  The  idea  of  this  plow  sprang  from  the  brain  of  James  Oliver 
OLIVER  ^s  Minerva  sprang  from  the  brain  of  Jove,  full  armed.  Its  tests 
for  eflBlciency  and  endurance  have  been  the  most  searching 
possible.  It  has  been  used  by  three  generations  of  men,  and 
to-day  the  Oliver  Chilled  Plow  Works  are  producing  seven 
times  as  many  chilled  plows  as  their  largest  competitor. 
The  Olivers  have  never  been  in  a  "trust"  or  "combine." 
And  moreover,  they  will  never  lend  themselves  to  any  trust 
in  the  future.  This  is  their  determined  and  unalterable  policy. 
Their  goods  are  sold  in  the  open  market,  in  competition  with 
many  other  manufacturers — the  field  is  a  free  one.  And  not 
even  their  most  prejudiced  competitor  has  ever  accused  them 
of  coercing  the  consumer,  of  banking  on  his  necessities,  or 
of  oppressing  labor. 

When  James  Oliver  was  last  approached  on  this  theme,  after 
the  matter  had  been  pushed  upon  his  attention  several  times 
with  various  and  sundry  tempting  offers  to  put  the  Plow 
Works  into  a  "Community  of  Interest,"  or  what  is  vulgarly 
called  a  Trust,  he  replied,  "I  do  not  care  for  your  money, 
neither  do  I  nor  my  family  wish  to  go  out  of  business.  We 
are  not  looking  for  ease  or  rest  or  luxury.  I  love  this  insti- 
tution, and  if  I  go  into  this  combine,  granting  I  will  make 
more  money  than  now,  what  is  to  prevent  your  shutting 
down  these  works  and  throwing  all  these  people  who  have 
worked  for  me  all  these  years  out  of  employment?  And  how 
would  that  affect  this  city  which  has  been  my  home  and 
the  home  of  those  I  love?  No,  sir,  your  talk  of  more  money 
and  less  responsibility  means  nothing  to  me.  I  want  my 
children  to  always  feel  the  stress  and  strain  of  work,  and 
never  to  forget  the  burdens  of  life,  in  order  that  they  may 
respect  the  burdens  of  others.  To  be  free  to  come  and  go 
is  death — morally  and  mentally,  if  not  financially.  Not  only 
do  the  Olivers  run  this  business  to  make  good  plows,  but 
54 


they  run  it  for  the  economic  and  educational  good  of  them-  j  a  m  F  q 
selves,  and  of  all  the  great  Oliver  Family  who  make  Oliver  ^ ,  i  v  F  P 
Plows  and  who  follow  in  fresh  furrows  behind  them.  So  you 
see,  gentlemen,  how  little  your  argument  is  worth  as  regards 
more  money,  greater  ease  and  less  responsibility.  And  if  it 
ever  comes  to  a  show-down,  I  '11  take  less  money  and  more 
work,  rather  than  greater  ease  and  more  money.  That  is 
the  Oliver  Policy — more  work  and  work  for  everybody  who 
wants  to  work.  Next,  more  plows,  and  if  it  is  possible,  better 
plows.  And  as  for  the  money  part,  that  will  take  care  of 
itself.''  And  this  same  sentiment  has  since  been  repeated 
by  Joseph  D.  Oliver. 

The  Oliver  fortune  is  founded  on  reciprocity.  James  Oliver 
was  a  farmer — in  fact  it  was  the  joke  of  his  friends  to  say 
that  he  took  as  much  pride  in  his  farming  as  in  his  manufac- 
turing. Mr.  Oliver  considered  himself  a  farmer,  and  regarded 
every  farmer  as  a  brother  or  partner  to  himself.  "I  am  a 
partner  of  the  farmer,  and  the  farmer  is  a  partner  of  Nature, " 
he  used  to  say.  He  always  looked  forward  to  the  time  when 
he  would  go  back  to  the  farm  and  earn  his  living  by  tilling 
the  soil.  He  studied  the  wants  of  the  farmer,  knew  the  value 
of  good  roads,  of  fertilizers,  drainage,  and  would  argue  long 
and  vigorously  as  to  the  saving  in  plowing  with  three  horses 
instead  of  two,  or  on  the  use  of  mules  vs.  horses.  He  loved 
trees,  and  liked  to  plant  them  himself  and  encouraged  boys 
to  plant  them  ^  He  had  positive  views  as  to  the  value  of 
Clydesdales  compared  with  Percherons. 
So  did  he  love  the  Clydes  that  for  many  years  he  drove  a 
half-breed,  shaggy-legged  and  flat-tailed  plow  horse  to  a 
buggy,  and  used  to  declare  that  all  a  good  Clyde  really 
needed  was  patience  in  training  to  make  him  a  race-horse. 
He  used  to  declare  the  horse  he  drove  could  trot  very  fast, 
— "if  I  would  let  him  out."  Unhappily  he  never  let  him  out, 

55 


JAMES  but  the  suspicion  was  that  the  speed  limit  of  the  honest  nag 
OLIVER  was  about  six  miles  an  hour,  with  the  driver  working  his 
passage.  Ayrshire  cattle  always  caught  his  eye,  and  he 
would  stop  farmers  in  the  field  and  interrogate  them  as  to 
their  success  in  cattle  breeding.  When  told  that  his  love  for 
Ayrshire  cattle  was  only  a  prejudice  on  account  of  his  love 
for  Robert  Burns,  who  was  born  at  Ayr,  he  would  say  "  A  mon  's 
a  mon  for  a'  that.'*  He  declared  that  great  men  and  great 
animals  always  came  from  the  same  soil,  and  that  where  you 
could  produce  good  horses  and  cattle  you  could  grow  great  men. 
Mr.  Oliver  was  always  devising  ways  to  benefit  and  brighten 
the  lives  of  families  on  the  farms. 

For  music  he  cared  little,  yet  during  the  seventies  and 
eighties  he  had  a  way  of  buying  "Mason  and  Hamlin" 
organs,  and  sending  them  as  Christmas  presents  to  some  of 
his  farmer  friends  where  there  were  growing  girls.  "A sewing- 
machine,  a  Mason  and  Hamlin  organ,  and  an  Oliver  Plow 
form  a  trinity  of  necessities  for  a  farmer,"  he  once  said. 
^  When  Orange  Judd  first  began  to  issue  his  "Rural  Amer- 
ican, "  the  enterprise  received  the  hearty  interest  and  support 
of  Mr.  Oliver  and  he  subscribed  for  hundreds  of  copies. 
He  thought  that  farmers  should  be  the  most  intelligent, 
the  most  healthy  and  the  happiest  people  on  earth — nothing 
was  too  good  for  a  farmer.  "Your  business  men  are  only 
middlemen — the  farmer  digs  his  wealth  out  of  the  ground, " 
he  used  to  say.  He  quoted  Brigham  Young's  advice  to  the 
Mormons,  "Raise  food  products  and  feed  the  miners  and 
you  will  all  get  rich.  But  if  you  mine  for  gold  and  silver, 
a  very  few  will  get  rich,  and  the  most  of  you  will  die  poor. " 


56 


0  here  is  the  point,  James  Oliver 
was  more  interested  in  industri- 
alism than  in  finance.  His  interest 
in  humanity  arose  out  of  his  desire 
to  benefit  humanity,  and  not  a 
wish  to  exploit  it. 
If  that  is  not  a  great  lesson  for 
the  young,  as  well  as  old,  then 
write  me  down  as  a  soused  gurnet. 
^  The  gentle  art  of  four-flushing 
was  absolutely  beyond  his  ken.  He 
was  like  those  South  Sea  Islanders 
told  of  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  who  did  n't  know  enough 
to  lie,  until  after  the  missionaries  came,  when  they  partially 
overcame  the  disability. 

James  Oliver  did  n*t  know  enough  to  lie.  He  knew  only  one 
way  to  do  business,  and  that  was  the  simple,  frank,  honest 
and  direct  way.  That  great  New  York  politician  whose  shib- 
boleth was,  **Find  your  sucker,  play  your  bucker,  land  your 
sucker — and  then  beat  it, "  would  have  been  to  him  hope- 
less Choctaw. 

To  sell  a  man  a  plow  at  a  price  beyond  its  worth,  or  to  sell 
a  man  anything  he  did  not  need,  was  to  him  a  calamity 
for  the  seller,  just  as  it  was  for  the  buyer. 
His  ambition  was  to  make  a  better  plow  than  any  other  living 
man  could  make,  and  then  sell  it  at  a  price  the  farmer  could 
afford  to  pay  J^  His  own  personal  profit  was  a  secondary  mat- 
ter. In  fact,  at  board  meetings,  when  ways  and  means  were 
under  discussion,  he  would  break  in  and  display  a  mold- 
board,  a  coulter  or  a  new  clevis,  with  a  letter  from  Farmer 
John  Johnson  of  Jones'  Cross  Roads,  as  to  its  efficiency. 
Then  when  the  board  did  not  wax  enthusiastic  over  his  new 
toy  he  would  slide  out  and  forget  to  come  back.  His  heart 

57 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


JAMES    was  set  on  making  a  better  tool,  at  less  expense  to  the 

OLIVER    consumer,  than  the  world  had  ever  seen.  Thus  would  he 

lessen  labor  and  increase  production.  So  beside  great  talent 

he  had  a  unique  simplicity,  which  often  supplied  smiles  for 

his  friends. 

James  Oliver  had  a  warm  sort  of  feeling  for  every  man  who 
had  ever  held  the  handles  of  an  Oliver  Plow — he  regarded 
such  an  one  as  belonging  to  the  great  family  of  Olivers. 
He  believed  that  success  depended  upon  supplying  a  com- 
modity that  made  the  buyer  a  friend ;  and  Heaven,  to  him,  was 
a  vast  County  Fair,  largely  attended  by  farmers,  where  exhibi- 
tions of  plowing  were  important  items  on  the  program. 
Streets  paved  with  gold  were  no  lure  for  him. 
In  various  ways  he  resembled  William  Morris,  who  when 
asked  what  was  his  greatest  ambition,  answered,  "I  hope 
to  make  a  perfect  blue, "  and  the  dye  on  his  hands  attested 
his  endeavors  in  this  line. 

Both  were  workingmen,  and  delighted  in  the  society  of 
toilers.  They  lived  like  poor  men,  and  wore  the  garb  of 
mechanics.  Neither  had  any  use  for  the  cards,  curds  and 
custards  of  what  is  called  polite  society.  They  hated  hypoc- 
risy, sham,  pretense,  and  scorned  the  soft,  the  warm,  the 
pleasant,  the  luxurious.  They  liked  stormy  weather,  the 
sweep  of  the  wind,  the  splash  of  the  rain  and  the  creak  of 
cordage.  They  gloried  in  difficulties,  reveled  in  the  opposition 
of  things  and  smiled  at  the  tug  of  inertia.  In  their  mltures 
was  a  granitic  outcrop  that  defied  failure.  It  was  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  with  a  goodly  cross  of  the  Norse,  that  gave  them 
this  disdain  of  danger,  and  made  levitation  in  their  natures 
the  supreme  thing — not  gravitation. 

The  stubbornness  of  the  Scot  is  an  inheritance  from  his 
Norse  forbears,  who  discovered  America  five  himdred  years 
before  Columbus  turned  the  trick.  These  men  were  well 
58 


called  the  "Wolves  of  the  Sea."  About  the  year  One  Thou-  JAMES 
sand,  a  troop  of  them  sailed  up  the  Seine  in  their  rude  but  OLIVER 
staunch  ships.  The  people  on  the  shore  seeing  these  strange 
giants,  their  yellow  hair  flying  in  the  wind,  called  to  them, 
** Where  are  you  from,  and  who  are  your  masters?" 
And  the  defiant  answer  rang  back  over  the  waters,  "We 
are  from  the  round  world,  and  we  call  no  man  master." 
fl  James  Oliver  called  no  man  mastero  Yet  with  him,  the 
violent  had  given  way  to  the  psychic  and  mental.  His  battle- 
ground was  the  world  of  ideas.  The  love  of  freedom  he  im- 
bibed with  his  mother's  milk.  It  was  the  thing  that  prompted 
their  leaving  Scotland. 

James  Oliver  had  the  defect  of  his  qualities.  He  was  essen- 
tially Cromwellian.  He  too  would  have  said,  "Take  away 
that  bauble ! "  He  did  not  look  outside  of  himself  for  help. 
Emerson's  essay  on  "Self -Reliance"  made  small  impression 
on  him,  because  he  had  the  thing  of  which  Emerson  wrote. 
His  strength  came  from  within,  not  without.  And  it  was  this 
dominant  note  of  self-reliance  which  made  him  seem  in- 
different to  the  strong  men  of  his  own  town  and  vicinity. 
It  was  not  a  contempt  for  strong  men,  it  was  only  the  natural 
indifference  of  one  who  called  no  man  master. 
He  was  a  big  body  himself,  big  in  brain,  big  in  initiative, 
big  in  self-suflaciency. 

He  could  do  without  men;  and  there  lies  the  paradox — ^if 
you  would  have  friends  you  must  be  able  to  do  without 
them.  James  Oliver  had  a  host  of  personal  friends,  and  he 
also  had  a  goodly  list  of  enemies,  for  a  man  of  his  tempera- 
ment does  not  trim  ship.  He  was  a  good  hater.  He  hugged 
his  enemies  to  his  heart  with  hoops  of  steel,  and  at  times 
they  inspired  him  as  soft  and  mawkish  concession  never 
could.  And  well  could  he  say,  "A  little  more  grape.  Captain 
Bragg."  Also,  "We  love  him  for  the  enemies  he  made." 

59 


JAMES  He  had  a  beautiful  disdain  tor  society — society  in  its  Smart 
O  L  I.V  E  R  Set  sense.  He  used  to  say,  "In  ordei  to  get  into  Heaven  you 
have  to  be  good  and  you  have  to  be  dead,  but  in  order  to  get 
into  society  you  do  not  have  to  be  either." 
Exclusion  and  caste  were  abhorrent  to  him. 
Oliver  gave  all,  and  doing  so  he  won  all  in  the  way  of  fame 
and  fortune  that  the  world  has  to  offer.  His  was  a  full,  free, 
happy  and  useftxl  life.  Across  the  sky  in  letters  of  light  I 
would  write  these  words  of  James  Oliver:  TO  BENEFIT 
YOURSELF,  YOU   MUST   BENEFIT  HUMANITY. 


ANGWILL  has  written  it  down  in 
fadeless  ink  that  Scotland  has  pro- 
duced three  bad  things:  Scotch 
humor,  Scotch  religion  and  Scotch 
whiskey.  James  Oliver  had  use  for 
only  one  of  the  commodities  just 
named — and  that  was  humor  jt 
Through  his  cosmos  ran  a  silver 
thread  of  quiet  chuckle  that  added 
light  to  his  life  and  endeared  him 
to  thousands.  Laughter  is  the  sol- 
vent for  most  of  our  ills! 
All  of  his  own  personal  religion — and  he  had  a  deal  of  it — 
was  never  saved  up  for  Sunday;  he  used  it  in  his  business. 
But  James  Oliver  was  a  Scotchman  and,  this  being  so,  the 
fires  of  his  theological  nature  were  merely  banked.  When 
Death  was  at  the  door  an  hour  before  his  passing,  this  hardy 
son  of  heath  and  heather,  of  bog  and  fen  and  bleak  north 
60 


wind,  roused  himself  from  stupor  and  in  his  deep,  impressive 
voice,  soon  to  be  stilled  forever,  startled  the  attendants  by 
the  stern  order,  **Let  us  Pray!"  Then  he  repeated  slowly 
the  Lord^s  Prayer,  and  with  the  word  **Amen,"  sank  back 
upon  his  pillow  to  arise  no  more. 

For  Scotch  whiskey  he  had  less  use  than  he  had  for  Scotch 
religion.  He  cursed  the  stuff  in  good,  stiff,  unco  words,  that 
were  not  always  to  be  found  in  Webster's  Unabridged. 
For  the  occasional  drimken  workman,  he  had  terms  of  pity 
and  sentences  of  scorn  in  alternation.  At  such  times  the 
Scotch  burr  would  come  to  his  lips,  and  the  blood  of  his 
ancestors  would  tangle  his  tongue. 

One  of  his  clerks  once  said  to  me,  "As  long  as  Mr.  James 
talks  United  States,  I  am  not  alarmed,  but  when  he  begins 
to  roll  it  out  with  a  burr  on  his  tongue,  as  if  his  mouth  were 
full  of  hot  mush,  I  am  scared  to  death. " 
It  shotild  be  here  explained  that  there  were  two  of  these 
Olivers,  "Mr.  James"  and  "Mr.  Joseph  D. " — ^father  and  son. 
And  there  be  many  good  men  and  discerning  who  aver 
that  without  the  son,  the  father  would  not  have  come  into 
the  lime-light,  and  that  the  greatest  achievement  of  James 
Oliver  was  not  tho  Oliver  Chilled  Plow,  but  Joseph  D. 
Oliver,  still  happily  unchilled. 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


6x 


JAMES 
OLIVER 


N  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ninety- 
three,  James  Oliver  spent  several 
months  at  the  Chicago  Exposition. 
He  was  one  of  the  World's  Fair 
Commissioners. 

Hundreds  of  people  shook  hands 
with  him  daily.  He  was  a  com- 
manding figure,  with  personality 
plus.  No  one  ever  asked  him,  any 
more  than  they  did  old  Doctor 
Johnson,  "Sir,  are  you  anybody 
in  particular?"  He  was  some- 
body in  particular,  all  over  and  all  of  the  time. 
That  story  about  how  the  stevedores  on  the  docks  in  Liverpool 
turned  and  looked  at  Daniel  Webster  and  said,  "There  goes 
the  King  of  America, "  has  been  related  of  James  Oliver.  He 
was  a  commanding  figure,  with  the  face  and  front  of  a  man 
in  whom  there  was  no  parley.  He  was  a  good  man  to  agree 
with.  In  any  emergency,  even  up  to  his  eightieth  year,  he 
would  have  at  once  taken  charge  of  affairs  by  divine  right. 
His  voice  was  the  voice  of  command. 
So  there  at  Chicago  he  was  always  the  center  of  an  admiring 
group.  He  was  Exhibit  A  of  the  Oliver  Plow  Works  Exhibition 
and  yet  he  never  realized  it.  One  day,  when  he  was  in  a  par- 
ticularly happy  mood,  and  the  Scotch  burr  was  delightfully 
apparent,  as  it  was  when  he  was  either  very  angry  or  very 
happy,  an  elderly  woman  pushed  her  way  through  the  throng 
and  seizing  the  hand  that  ruled  the  Oliver  Plow  Works  in 
both  of  her  own,  said  in  ecstatic  tones,  "Oh!  it  is  such  a  joy 
to  see  you  again.  Twenty  years  ago  I  used  to  hear  you  preach 
every  Sunday !  '*  ^  For  once,  James  Oliver  was  undone.  He 
hesitated,  stammered  and  then  exclaimed  in  flat  contradic- 
tion, "Madam,  you  never  heard  me  preach  I" 
62 


*  *  Why,  are  n't  you  Robert  Collyer — the  Rev.  Robert  Collyer?  *•   JAMES 
^  "Not  I,  madam.  My  name  is  Oliver,  and  I  make  plows,'*    OLIVER 
was  the  proud  reply. 

That  night  Oliver  asked  his  trusted  helper.  Captain  Nicar, 
this  question,  "I  say,  Nicar,  who  is  this  man  Collyer — that 
woman  was  the  third  person  within  a  week  who  mistook  me 
for  that  preacher.  I  don't  look  like  a  dominie  do  I,  Captain?  " 
^  And  then  Captain  Nicar  explained  Tyhat  Mr.  Oliver  had 
known,  but  which  had  temporarily  slipped  his  mind — that 
Robert  Collyer  was  a  very  great  preacher,  a  Unitarian  who 
had  graduated  out  of  orthodoxy,  and  who  in  his  youth  had 
been  a  blacksmith.  ^  "Why  did  n't  he  stay  a  blacksmith, 
if  he  was  a  good  one,  and  let  it  go  at  that?" 
But  this  Nicar  couldn't  answer.  However,  the  very  next  day- 
Robert  Collyer  came  along,  piloted  by  Marshall  Field,  and 
Oliver  had  an  opportunity  to  put  the  question  to  the  man 
himself  J^  J> 

Robert  Collyer  was  much  impressed  by  Mr.  Oliver,  and  Mr. 
Oliver  declared  that  Mr.  Collyer  was  not  to  blame  for  his 
looks.  And  so  they  shook  hands. 

Collyer  was  at  Chicago  to  attend  the  Parliament  of  Religions, 
This  department  of  the  great  Exposition  had  not  before  espec- 
ially appealed  to  Oliver — machinery  was  his  bent.  But  now  he 
forgot  plows  long  enough  to  go  and  hear  Robert  Collyer 
speak  on,  "Why  I  am  a  Unitarian." 

After  the  address  Mr.  Oliver  said  to  Mr.  Collyer,  "Almost  thou 
persuadest  me  to  be  a  Unitarian. " 

"Had  you  taken  to  the  pulpit,  you  would  have  made  a  great 
preacher,  Mr.  Oliver,"  said  Mr.  Collyer. 
"And  if  you  had  stuck  to  your  bellows  and  forge  you  might 
have  been  a  great  plow  maker, "  replied  Mr.  Oliver, — "and 
it 's  lucky  for  me  you  did  n't. " 

"Which  is  no  pleasantry,"  replied  Mr.  Collyer,  "for  if  I  had 

63 


JAMES  made  plows  I  would,  like  you,  only  have  made  the  best." 
OLIVER  fl"Mr.  Oliver,  I  wish  you  would  make  me  a  mental  mold- 
board  that  will  cause  my  ideas  to  scour  and  thus  reduce  the 
draft  on  my  ego, "  once  said  Mr.  Collyer. 
**I  think  you  have  a  mighty  good  outfit  for  stirring  up  the 
spiritual  soil,  as  it  is, "  replied  Oliver. 

The  Oliver  Exhibit  at  the  great  Fair,  was  a  kind  of  meeting 
place  for  a  group  of  such  choice  spirits  as  Philip  D.  Armour, 
Sam  Allerton,  ** Higginbotham  Himself,"  Clark  E.  Carr 
and  [oseph  Medill ;  and  then  David  Swing,  Robert 
Collyer,  Dr.  Frank  Gunsaulus  and  'Gene^Field  were  added 
to  the  coterie.  'Gene  Field's  column  of  "Sharps  and  Flats" 
used  to  get  the  benefit  of  the  persiflage. 
Collyer  and  Oliver  were  born  the  same  year — Eighteen  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty -three.  Both,  had  the  same  magnificent 
health,  the  same  high  hope  and  courage  that  never  falters, 
and  either  would  have  succeeded  in  anything  into  which  he 
might  have  turned  his  energies. 

Chance  made  Oliver  a  mechanic  and  an  inventor.  He  evolved 
the  industrial  side  of  his  nature.  Chance  also  lifted  Collyer 
out  of  a  blacksmith  shop,  and  tossed  him  into  the  pulpit. 
^  Collyer  was  born  in  Yorkshire,  but  his  ancestors  were 
Scotch.  Oliver's  mother's  name  was  Irving,  and  the  Irvings 
appear  in  the  Collyer  pedigree,  tracing  to  Edward  Irving, 
that  strong  and  earnest  preacher  who  played  such  a  part  in 
influencing  Tammas  the  Titan,  of  Ecclefechan.  Whether 
Oliver  and  Collyer  ever  followed  up  their  spiritual  rela- 
tionship to  see  whether  it  was  a  blood  tie,  I  do  not  know 
— probably  not,  since  both,  like  all  superbly  strong  men, 
have  a  beautiful  indifference  to  climbing  geneological  trees. 
fl  I  once  heard  Robert  Collyer  speak  in  a  sermon  of  James 
Oliver  as  **a  transplanted  thistle  evolved  into  a  beautiftd 
flower,"  and  "the  man  of  many  manly  virtues." 
64 


Seemingly  Mr.  Collyer  was  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  in  JAMES 

describing  Mr.  Oliver,  he  was  picturing  himself.  Industry,  OLIVER 

economy,  the  love  of  fresh  air,  the  enjoyment  of  the  early 

morning,  the  hatred  of  laziness,  shiftlessness,  sharp  practice 

and  all  that  savors  of  graft,  grab  and  get-by-any-means — 

these  characteristics  were  strong  in  both.  And  surely  Robert 

Collyer  was  right — if  the  world  ever  produces  a  race  of  noble 

men,  that  race  will  be  founded  on  the  simple  virtues,  upon 

which  there  is  neither  caveat  nor  copyright,  the  virtues 

possessed  by  James  Oliver  in  such  a  rare  and  rich  degree. 


EORGE  H.  DANIELS,  of  the  New 
York  Central  Railroad  and  James 
Oliver  were  close,  personal  friends. 
Both  were  graduates  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Hard  Knocks,  both 
loved  their  Alma  Mater. 
When  Daniels  printed  that  literary 
trifle,  "A  Message  to  Garcia,"  he 
sent  five  thousand  copies  to  Oliver, 
who  gave  one  to  every  man  in  his 
factory  ^  J(> 

Daniels  was  one  of  the  lUini,  and 
had  held  the  handles  of  an  Oliver  Plow.  He  had  seen  the  great 
business  of  the  Olivers  at  South  Bend  evolve.  Oliver  admired 
Daniels,  as  he  did  any  man  who  could  do  big  things  in  a  big 
way.  Daniels  had  an  exhibition  of  locomotives  and  passenger 
cars  at  the  Chicago  Exposition,  and  personally  spent  muca 
time  there.  Among  the  very  interesting  items  in  the  New 

65 


JAMES  York  Central's  exhibit  was  the  locomotive  that  once  ran 
OLIVER  ^T^om  Albany  to  Schenectady,  when  that  streak  of  strap  iron 
rust,  sixteen  miles  long,  constituted  the  whole  of  the  New 
York  Central  Railroad;  and  this  locomotive,  the  "Dewitt 
Clinton,"  had  been  the  entire  motor  equipment,  save  two 
good  mules  used  for  switching  purposes. 
Oliver  and  Daniels  stood  side  by  side  looking  at  the  quaint 
curiosity,  the  direct  ancestor  of  old  **999."  **You  own  the 
teakettle,  George,  but  I  've  got  the  start  of  you — I  rode 
behind  the  thing  as  a  paid  passenger  in  Eighteen  Himdred 
and  Thirty-five,"  said  Oliver  to  Daniels. 
And  this  was  an  actual  fact;  the  Oliver  family  had  ridden 
over  the  road  on  their  way  from  Scotland  to  the  West. 
It  was  during  the  Exposition  that  Oliver  incidentally  told 
Daniels  about  how  he  had  been  mistaken  for  the  Rev. 
Robert  CoUyer. 

**I  can  sympathize  with  you,"  said  Daniels,  "for  the  plague 
of  my  life  is  a  preacher  who  looks  like  me.  Only  last  week 
I  was  stopped  on  the  street  by  a  man  who  wanted  me  to  go 
to  his  house  and  perform  a  marriage  ceremony." 
**And  you  punched  his  ticket?"  asked  Oliver. 
**No,  I  accepted  and  sent  for  the  sky-pilot  to  do  the  job,  and 
the  happy  couple  never  knew  of  the  break." 
The  man  who  so  closely  resembled  Daniels  was  Rev.  Dr. 
Thomas  R.  Slicer  of  Buffalo,  an  eminent  clergyman  now 
in  New  York  City.  Besides  other  points  of  resemblance,  the 
one  thing  that  marked  them  as  twins  was  a  beautiful  red 
chin  whisker,  about  the  color  of  an  Irish  setter.  Once 
Daniels  challenged  the  reverend  gentleman  to  toss  up  to 
see  who  should  sacrifice  the  lilacs.  Dr.  Slicer  got  tails  but 
lost  his  nerve  before  he  reached  the  barber's,  and  so  still 
clings  to  his  beauty-mark. 

Dr.  Slicer  was  once  going  through  the  Grand  Central  Station 
66 


when  he  was  approached  by  a  man  who  struck  him  for  a  pass  JAMES 

to  Niagara  Falls.  OLIVER 

**I  regret,"  said  the  preacher,  "that  I  cannot  issue  you  a 

pass  to  Niagara  Falls;  all  I  can  do  is  to  give  you  a  pass  to 

Paradise. " 

"Which,"  said  Mr.  Oliver,  when  Mr.  Daniels  told  him  the 

story,  "which  was  only  a  preacher's  way  of  telling  the  man 

to  go  to  hades.  You  and  I,  George,  express  ourselves  much 

more  simply." 


ITHOUT  detracting  from  the  meed 
of  praise  that  is  due  James  Oliver, 
the  truth  should  be  stated  that 
alone  he  could  never  have  built 
up  or  extended  this  business  to 
its  present  colossal  proportions. 
^  The  fact  that  an  invention  is 
useful  and  much  needed  does 
not  insure  its  success. 
For  while  it  is  true  that  only  a 
useful  invention  or  appliance  can 
at  the  last  succeed,  yet  the  further 
fact  remains  that  because  it  is  good  is  no  sign  it  will  go. 
It  will  not  necessarily  succeed  any  more  than  moral  virtue 
and  spiritual  beauty  will  be  popular  next  year  at  Atlantic 
City  and  on  Fifth  Avenue. 

Good  things  go  only  when  captained  by  big  men.  It  is  a 
question  of  generalship,  or  salesmanship.  It  is  a  matter  of 
marketing  your  wares.  The  superior  man  is  not  the  one 

67 


JAMES  who  thinks  great  thoughts,  but  he  who  expresses  them  so 
OLIVER  as  to  give  humanity  a  vibe  and  a  list  to  starboard. 

Success  is  voltage  imder  control — keeping  one  hand  on  the 
transformer  of  your  kosmic  kilowatts. 
So  to  the  argument:  Excellent  inventions  and  mines  with 
pay  gravel  are  nil  and  nit  and  mox  nix  ouse,  as  we  say  in 
the  classics,  until  a  man  with  phosphorus  in  his  ego  takes 
the  management  and  transforms  chaos  into  cosmos. 
We  all  see  big  pictures  in  our  dream  mirror  when  drunk  on 
art,  love,  dope  or  religion,  but  the  boy  who  puts  his  picture 
on  the  canvas  and  sells  it  to  Col.  Pierpont  Morgan — he  is 
the  only  one  who  is  really  IT. 

So  when  you  tell  me  of  your  wonderful  invention  and  want 
to  sell  me  stock  in  your  company,  just  bring  me  a  snap-shot 
of  the  man  who  is  going  to  manage  your  concern,  as  well 
as  a  list  of  what  he  eats  and  drinks,  the  hours  he  sleeps  and 
how  he  exercises  both  his  body  and  sky-piece. 
Then  I  '11  talk  with  you  about  investing. 
While  Joseph  D.  Oliver  lacks  the  picturesque  crankiness 
of  the  older  man,  he  has  a  mental  reach  and  a  judicial 
outlook  upon  the  world  which  James  Oliver  never  had.  He 
is  a  diplomat,  a  financier,  an  organizer.  He  is  a  judge  of 
men,  and  never  does  a  thing  he  can  get  some  one  else  to  do 
for  him.  Big  men  succeed  through  the  process  of  selection. 
Joseph  D.  Oliver  has  a  wise  sense  of  values,  and  rare  good 
taste  as  to  the  eternal  fitness  of  things.  He  manages  men 
without  their  knowing  it.  And  let  this  be  said,  James  Oliver 
was  big  enough  to  leave  all  questions  of  salesmanship  and 
finance  to  his  son.  For  over  thirty  years,  Joseph  D.  Oliver 
has  been  the  actual  working  manager  of  the  business.  He 
knows  every  corner  and  cranny  of  this  vast  industry,  and 
has  the  broad,  prophetic  outlook  of  a  great  Captain  of 
Industry.  He  holds  the  ship  safe  and  true  to  her  course. 
68 


^  The  Oliver  Opera  House  and  that  paragon  of  hostelriee,    JAMES 

"The  Oliver  Hotel, "  were  the  ideas  of  James  Oliver,  mate-    OLIVER 

rialized  by  Joseph  D. 

When  I  was  told  that  James  Oliver  was  the  richest  man  in 

Indiana,  I  said  to  myself,  "Well,  his  son  is  the  best  ballasted 

man,  mentally  and  physically  and  spiritually,  in  Indiana — 

and  perhaps  in  America. ''  That  sounds  like  oxaline,  I  know, 

but  the  remark  is  carefully  considered.  I  weigh  my  words. 

^  When  we  so  often  see  great  wealth  coupled  with  great 

weakness,  is  it  not  a  satisfaction  to  find  a  rich  man  who  is 

moderate  in  all  the  affairs  of  life,  who  is  liberal  but  not 

lavish,  who  conserves  his  nerve-force  and  who  realizes  that 

great  wealth  is  a  responsibility — a  stewardship? 

Joseph  D.  Oliver  is  so  big  and  great  that  he  has  always 

been  quite  willing  to  stand  in  the  shadow.  He  has  not  clutched 

for  honors ;  he  has  not  asked  for  applause.  The  sycophant  and 

flatterer  have  never  been  able  to  move  him.  He  is  an  educated 

gentleman  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  and  he  is  also  a  work- 

ingman.  His  life  is  devoted  to  this  great  science  of  business — 

to  creation  and  distribution  jt  Yet  he  knows  history,  loves 

music  and  literature,  delights  in  Nature,  appreciates  the  plain, 

simple  joys  of  Life  and  practices  the  great  and  manly  virtues, 

without  which  the  greatest  and  richest  is  something  less  than 

a  man.  His  family  relations  are  the  happiest,  sweetest  and 

sunniest.  He  has  two  sons — ^James  and  Joseph  Doty,  jr. — 

fine  hearty  yotmg  men,  who  are  being  brought  up  to  work, 

as  boys  should  and  must  if  they  would  elude  the  frowns  of 

Fate  and  dodge  her  Stuffed  Club. 

The  social  and  financial  bounder  may  have  his  use,  but  I 

do  not  know  what  it  is  unless  it  be  as  a  microbe  of  dissolution. 

But  of  such  is  not  the  House  of  Oliver. 


69 


JAMES  |H^S7|^7xpir>5^ISSpl|'^  ^^  ^^*  ^^  *°  make  James  Oliver 
OLIVER   kf3i/lLN>l/lli\i/WLfs^    out  a  religious  man  in  a  sectarian 

sense  J^  He  did  however  have  a 
great  abiding  faith  in  the  Supreme 
Intelligence  in  which  we  are  bathed 
and  of  which  we  are  a  part.  He 
saw  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
the  Creator  on  every  hand.  He 
loved   Nature — the   birds   in   the 
hedgerows    and   the    flowers    in 
the  field.  He  gloried  in  the  sun- 
rise, and  probably  saw  the  sun 
rise  more  times  than  any  other  man  in  Indiana. 
"The  morning  is  full  of  perfume,"  he  used  to  say.  And  so 
it  is,  but  most  of  us  need  to  be  so  informed. 
He  believed  most  of  all  in  his  own  mission  and  in  his  own 
divinity.  Therefore  he  prized  good  health,  and  looked  upon 
sickness  and  sick  people  with  a  touch  of  scorn.  He  reverenced 
the  laws  of  health  as  God's  Laws,  and  so  he  would  not  put 
an  enemy  in  his  mouth  to  steal  away  his  brains.  He  used  no 
tobacco,  was  wedded  to  the  daily  cold  bath  and  was  a  regular 
amphibian  for  splashing.  He  had  a  system  of  calisthenics 
which  he  followed  as  religiously  as  the  Mohammedan  prays 
to  the  East.  The  pasteboard  proclivity  was  not  one  of  his 
accomplishments. 

But  a  few  months  before  his  death  he  was  missed  one  day 
at  the  works.  His  son  thought  he  would  drive  out  to  his  farm 
and  see  if  he  was  there.  He  was  there  all  right,  and  had  just 
one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  men,  by  actual  count,  digging 
a  ditch  and  laying  out  a  road. 

James  Oliver  was  n't  a  man  given  to  explanations,  apologies 
or  excuses.  His  working  motto  usually  was  that  of  Rev.  Dr. 
Jowett  of  Baliol,  ** Never  explain,  never  apologize — get  the 
70 


thing  done,  and  let  them  howl!"  ^  But  on  this  occasion,   JAMES 
anticipating  a  gentle  reproach  from  his  son  for  his  extrav-   OLIVER 
agance,  he  said,  **A11  right,  Joe,  all  right.  You  see   I  've 
been  postponing  this  tarnashun  job  for  twenty  years,  and  I 
thought  I  M  just  take  hold  and  clean  it  up,  because  I  knew 
you  never  would!" 

He  was  let  off  with  a  warning,  but  Joseph  had  to  go  behind 
the  barn  and  laugh. 

One  thing  that  was  as  much  gratification  to  Mr.  Oliver  as 
making  the  road,  was  the  sense  of  motion,  action,  bustle 
and  doing  things.  He  delighted  in  looking  after  a  rush  job, 
and  often  took  charge  of  "the  boys"  personally. 
For  the  men  who  made  the  plows,  his  regard  was  as  great 
as  for  those  who  used  them.  He  moved  among  the  men  as 
one  of  them,  and  while  his  discipline  never  relaxed,  he  was 
always  approachable  and  ready  to  advise  even  with  the  most 
lowly.  His  sense  of  justice  and  his  consideration  are  shown 
in  the  fact  that  in  all  the  long  years  that  the  Oliver  Plow 
Works  has  existed,  it  has  never  once  been  defendant  in  a 
lawsuit  in  their  home  county,  damage  or  otherwise. 
Thousands  of  men  have  been  employed  and  accidents  have 
occasionally  happened  but  the  unfortunate  man  and  his 
family  have  always  been  cared  for.  Indeed,  the  Olivers  carry 
a  pension  roll  for  the  benefit  of  widows,  orphans  and  old 
people,  the  extent  of  which  is  known  only  to  the  confidential 
cashier.  They  do  not  proclaim  their  charities  with  a  brass  band. 
fl  James  Oliver  thought  that  a  man  should  live  so  as  to  be  useful 
all  of  his  days.  Getting  old  was  to  him  a  bad  habit.  He  did  not 
believe  in  retiring  from  business,  either  to  have  a  good  time 
or  because  you  were  old  and  bughouse.  "Use  your  faculties 
and  you  will  keep  them, "  he  used  to  repeat  again  and  again. 
He  agreed  with  Herbert  Spencer  that  men  have  softening 
of  the  brain  because  they  have  failed  to  use  that  organ. 

71 


JAMES  ^^  certainly  he  proved  his  theories,  for  he,  himself,  was 
OLIVER  ^^°®  ^^^  sensible  to  the  day  of  his  death.  Yet  when  certain 
of  his  helpers,  bowed  beneath  the  weight  of  years  and  life's 
vicissitudes,  would  become  weak  and  needful  of  care,  he 
would  say,  "Well,  old  John  has  done  us  good  work,  and  we 
must  look  after  him. "  And  he  did. 

He  would  have  denied  that  he  was  either  charitable  or 
philanthropic;  but  the  fact  was  that  the  Golden  Rule  was 
a  part  of  his  business  policy,  and  beneath  his  brusque  outside, 
there  beat  a  very  warm  and  generous  heart. 
When  the  financial  panic  of  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ninety- 
three  struck  the  country,  and  dealers  were  canceling  their 
•  orders,  and  everybody  was  shortening  sail,  the  Olivers  kept 
right  along  manufacturing  and  stored  their  product. 
Never  have  they  laid  off  labor  on  account  of  hard  times.  Never 
have  they  even  shortened  hours  or  pay.  This  is  a  record,  I 
believe,  equaled  by  no  big  manufacturing  concern  in  America. 
^  In  October,  Nineteen  Hundred  and  Seven,  when  workmen 
were  being  laid  off  on  every  hand,  the  Olivers  simply  started 
in  and  increased  their  area  for  the  storage  of  surplus  product. 
They  had  faith  that  the  tide  would  turn,  and  this  faith  was 
founded  on  the  experience  of  forty  years  and  more  in  business. 
Said  James  Oliver,  "Man's  first  business  was  to  till  the  soil; 
his  last  business  will  be  to  till  the  soil ;  I  help  the  farmer  to  do 
his  work,  and  for  my  product  there  will  always  be  a  demand. " 


72 


AMES  OLIVER  had  no  fear  of  j^mES 
death.  He  had  an  abiding  faith  @  L I V  E  R 
that  the  Power  that  cared  for  him 
here,  would  never  desert  him 
there.  He  looked  upon  death  as 
being  as  natural  as  life  and  prob- 
ably just  as  good.  For  the  quibbles 
of  theology  he  had  small  patience. 
"Live  right  here — wait,  and  we 
shall  know,"  he  used  to  say. 
When  his  wife  died,  in  Nineteen 
Hundred  and  Two,  he  bore  the 
blow  like  a  Spartan.  Fifty-eight  years  had  they  journeyed 
together.  She  was  a  woman  of  great  good  sense,  and  a  very 
handsome  woman,  even  in  her  old  age.  Her  husband  had 
always  depended  on  her,  telling  her  his  plans  and  thus  clari- 
fying them  in  his  own  mind.  They  were  companions,  friends, 
chums,  lovers — man  and  wife.  After  her  death  he  redoubled 
his  activities,  and  fought  valiantly  to  keep  from  depressing 
the  household  with  the  grief  that  was  gnawing  at  his  heart. 
^  A  year  passed,  and  one  day  he  said  to  his  son,  **Joe,  I 
do  miss  your  mother  awfully — ^but  then  I  '11  not  have  to 
endure  this  loneliness  forever!" 

And  this  was  as  near  a  sign  of  weakness  as  he  ever  showed. 
^  A  woman  once  came  to  Mr.  Oliver  soliciting  subscriptions 
for  some  sort  of  doubtful  charity.  She  was  so  persistent,  that 
to  get  rid  of  her  Mr.  Oliver  took  out  of  his  pocket  a  silver 
dollar  and  pushed  it  across  the  desk  to  her. 
With  lofty  contempt  the  woman  said,  "I  have  no  use  for 
such  an  insignificant  sum." 

And  with  great  courtesy,  Mr.  Oliver  replied,  "Madam,  I 
have,"  and  promptly  picked  up  the  dollar  and  put  it  back 
in  his  pocket. 

73 


#!i  1  T  VK* p  ^®  ^^^  neither  a  miser  nor  a  spendthrift.  He  always  knew 
O  L 1 V  t.  K  ^j^g  value  of  a  dollar,  and  always  his  earnest  desire  was  to 
so  invest  his  money  that  it  would  add  to  the  business  pros- 
perity of  the  community,  and  in  fact  the  whole  coimtry. 
^  James  Oliver  was  a  successful  man,  but  it  was  not  always 
smooth  sailing.  In  the  early  days  the  Plow  Plant  caught  fire 
at  night  and  was  absolutely  consumed  ^  Returning  home 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  exhausted,  and  with  clothing 
wet  and  frozen  in  a  sheet  of  ice,  this  man  sorely  kicked  by 
an  unkind  fate,  turned  a  chair  over  on  the  floor  before  the 
fireplace,  and  reclining  on  it,  there  with  eyes  closed,  endeav- 
ored to  forget  the  trying  scenes  of  the  night. 
Mrs.  Oliver  had  made  coffee  and  prepared  a  simple  breakfast 
for  the  tired  man.  But  rest  was  never  for  her  or  her  family 
when  there  was  pressing^  work  demanding  attention. 
** James,  why  are  you  wasting  time!  Drink  this  coffee,  put 
on  these  dry  clothes  and  go  at  once  before  daylight  and  order 
lumber  and  brick  so  the  men  can  begin  at  seven  o'clock  to 
rebuild.  We  have  orders  to  fill ! "  And  the  man  arousing  him- 
self, obeyed  the  command.  At  seven  o'clock  the  lumber  was  on 
the  ground  and  the  men  were  at  work  preparing  to  rebuild. 
^  James  Oliver  was  a  man  of  courage,  but  his  patience, 
persistency  and  unfaltering  faith  were  largely  the  reflection 
of  his  wife's  soul  and  brain.  When  seventy  years  of  age, 
a  neighbor  once  dropped  in  for  a  little  visit  and  in  conver- 
sation referred  to  Mr.  Oliver's  being  a  rich  man. 
"Yes,"  said  this  kindly  old  Spartan,  **Yes,  they  say  I  am 
rich,  but  if  I  didn't  have  a  dollar,  I  would  si  ill  be  rich — 
with  a  wife  like  that!"  and  he  pointed  to  his  partner  of 
nearly  half  a  century. 

Mrs.  Oliver  smiled  and  said  chidingly,  "Now  James!"  But 
he  continued,  "I  say,  mother,  if  we  did  not  have  a  dollar, 
we  could  still  earn  our  living  with  our  hands  at  just  plain 
74 


hard  work,  could  n't  we? "  ^  And  the  old  lady  (who  really  .  *  ••  w^. « 
was  never  old)  replied,  "Yes,  James,  we  could  earn  our  '^ftj^Z^  ^ 
living  with  our  hands,  and  we  would  not  be  miserable  ^  ^  *  ^  '^^ 
over  it  either." 

Near  the  close  of  his  wonderful  career,  Pericles  said,  "I 
have  caused  no  one  to  wear  crepe."  The  Hon.  Marvin 
Campbell,  in  a  speech  at  South  Bend,  once  quoted  this 
remark  of  the  man  who  built  the  city  of  Athens  and  added, 
"Not  only  can  we  pay  James  Oliver  the  compliment  of  saying 
that  he  never  caused  any  one  to  wear  crepe,  but  no  one  ever 
lost  money  by  investing  either  in  his  goods  or  his  enterprises, 
and  moreover  no  one  ever  associated  with  him  who  did  not 
prosper  and  grow  wiser  and  better  through  the  association. " 
A  few  weeks  before  his  passing,  some  one  told  him  this  little 
story  of  Tolstoy's:  A  priest,  seeing  a  peasant  plowing,  ap- 
proached him  and  said,  "If  you  knew  you  were  to  die  to- 
night how  would  you  spend  the  rest  of  the  day?" 
And  the  peasant  promptly  answered,  "I  would  plow." 
It  seems  the  priest  thought  the  man  would  answer,  "In 
confession,"  or  "In  prayer,"  or  "At  church."  The  priest 
heard  the  answer  in  surprise.  He  thought  a  moment,  and 
then  replied,  "My  friend,  you  have  given  the  wisest  answer 
a  man  can  possibly  make,  for  to  plow  is  to  pray,  since  the 
prayer  of  honest  labor  is  always  answered." 
The  story  impressed  Mr.  Oliver.  He  told  it  to  several  people, 
and  then  made  a  personal  application  of  it,  thus:  "If  I 
knew  I  were  to  die  to-night,  I  would  make  plows  lo-day," 


7S 


ND  THEY  SHALL 
BEAT  THEIR 
SWORDS  INTO 
PLOWSHARES, 
AND  THEIR 
SPEARS    INTO 


PRUNING-HOOKS:  NATION 
SHALL  NOT  LIFT  UP  SWORD 
AGAINST  NATION.  NEITHER 
SHALL  THEY  LEARN  WAR 
ANY  MORE.— ISAIAH  2:4 


LITTLE   JOURNEYS 

by  Elbert  Hubbard  in  Booklet  Form — 
Frontispiece  Portrait  of  Each  Subject. 


Frederick  Chopin 
Felix  Mendelssohn 
Samuel  Coleridge 
Benjamin  Disraeli 
Mark  Antony 
Whistler 
Pericles 
Savonarola 
John  Wesley 
Henry  George 
Thomas  Paine 
Richard  Cobden 
John  Knox 
Garibaldi 
John  Bright 
Robert  Owen 


Charles  Bradlaugh 

Theodore  Parker 

Oliver  Crpmvi^ell 

Anne  Hutchinson 

Jean  Rousseau 

Moses 

Confucius 

Pythagoras 

Plato 

King  Alfred 

Friedrich  Froebel 

Booker  Washington 

Thomas  Arnold 

Erasmus 

Hypatia 

Mary  Baker  Eddy 


The  Price  is  TEN  CENTS  Each,  or  One  Dollar 
for  Ten — as  long  as  they  last. 

THE    ROYCROFTERS 

East    Aurora,    Erie    County,    New    York 


THE  ROYCROFTERS 

EAST  AURORA,  ERIE  COUNTY,  NEW  YORK 

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HEALTH  AND   WEALTH Hubbard 

The  Broncho  Book    ------    Capt,  Jack  Crawford 

Woman's  Work       --------    Alice  Hubbard 

Battle  of  Waterloo      --------       Victor  Hugo 

White  Hyacinths     --------   Elbert  Hubbard 

TheRubaiyat     ---------     Omar  Khayyam 

A  William  Morris  Book    -    -    -        Hubbard  and  Thomson 
Crimes  against  Criminals  ^  -    -    -    -      Robert  G.  Ingersoll 

A  Christmas  Carol   --------    Charles  Dickens 

The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol     -----      Oscar  Wilde 

Justinian  and  Theodora      -    -   *   Elbert  and  Alice  Hubbard 
BOUND  VOL.  LITTLE  JOURNEYS     -     Hubbard 


LITTLE    JOURNEYS 

FIFTEENTH  YEAR 

-—  OR  Nineteen  Hundred  and  Nine,  Little  Journeys 
by  Elbert  Hubbard  will  be  to  the  homes  of  Great 
Business  Men.  Mr.  Hubbard  has  been  farm-hand, 
ffl  office  boy,  printer's  devil,  foreman,  editor,  mana- 
ger, proprietor.  He  is  an  economist  himself— an  economist 
of  time,  money  and  materials.  Mr.  Hubbard  is  a  Farmer; 
he  also  operates  a  Bank,  a  Hotel,  a  Printing-shop,  a  Book- 
bindery  and  a  Guinea-hen  Garage. 

SUBJECTS    OF    LITTLE    JOURNEYS   FOR    1909 

ROBERT  OWEN  H.  J.  HEINZ  JOHN  JACOB  ASTOR 

JAMES  OLIVER  PHILIP  D.  ARMOUR       AUGUST  SCHILLING 

STEPHEN  GIRARD  'MAXER  ROTHSCHILD  JOHN  WANAMAKER 
ALBERT  A.  POPE       JAMES  J.  HILL  ANDREW  CARNEGIE 

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I  am  a  writing  man  and  I  know  the  difficulties  of  the  craft;  and  I  say  that 
Elbert  Hubbard  is  the  greatest  writer — vocabulary  and  range  of  ideas  consid- 
ered— tl\at  the  world  has  ever  seen,  ancient  or  modern. — ROBERT  BARR 
Young  writers  intent  on  style  can  not  do  better  than  read  Elbert  Hubbard. 
He  says  big  things  in  tabloid.— ALFRED  HENRY  LEWIS 
Elbert  Hubbard  is  the  only  man  in  America  who  has  the  English  language 
firmly  by  the  tail.— JOAQUIN  MILLER 

We  are  not  surprised  that  Elbert  Hubbard's  Little  Journeys  are  being  introduced 
into  our  High  Schools  as  text  books.  FraElbertus  writes  as  he  feels  and  he  usually 
feels  right.  He  is  more  interested  in  life  than  in  literature ;  he  is  so  full  of  his 
subject  that  he  radiates  it.  And  if  he  occasionally  walks  all  over  our  old-time 
rules  of  rhetoric,  we  are  the  gainers.  Many  a  book  has  been  regarded  as 
profound  when  it  was  only  stupid.  In  his  writing,  Elbert  Hubbard  is  as  vivid 
as  Victor  Hugo,  as  rippling  as  Heinrich  Heine,  as  tender  as  Jean  Paul ;  and 
we  must  remember  that  the  chief  charge  brought  against  all  of  the^e  men  was 
that  they  were  interesting.  Nowadays  we  do  not  consider  dullness  a  virtue.  We 
shun  the  turgid  and  lugubrious.  We  ask  for  life.— CHICAGO  INTER-OCEAN 


Books  by  Elbert  Hubbard 

Respectability     -             -             -             -  -         $  2.00 

The  Man  of  Sorrows               -             -             -  2.00 

Love,  Life  and  Work     -             -             -  -             2.00 

White  Hyacinths       -             -             -             -  2.00 

Health  and  Wealth         -             -             -  -             2. 00 
Time  and  Chance — A  Narrative  Life  of  John  Brown ; 

350  pages,  in  limp  leather,  silk  hned  -             2.50 

No  Enemy  But  Himself        -             -             -  1.25 

The  following  LITTLE  JOURNEYS  are  on  hand-made  paper,  hand  illumined, 
limp  leather,  silk  lined,  illustrated,  a  very  beautiful  book  (some  folks  think) 

Little  Journeys  to  Homes  of  Good  Men  and  Great  $  3.00 

American  Authors     -             -             -             -  3.00 

Famous  Women               -             -             -  -             3.00 

American  Statesmen              -             -             -  8.00 

Eminent  Painters             -             -             -  -             3.00 

English  Authors,  Book  1       -             -       ..  g.oo 

English  Authors,  Book  II           -             -  -             3.00 

Great  Musicians,  Book  I       -             -             -  3.00 

Great  Musicians,  Book  II           -             -  -             8.00 

Eminent  Artists,  Book  I       -             -             -  8.00 

Eminent  Artists,  Book  II           -             -  -             3.00 

Eminent  Orators,  Book  I      -             -             -  3.00 

Eminent  Orators,  Book  II          -             -  -             3.00 

Great  Philosophers,  Book  I                -             -  3.00 

Great  Philosophers,  Book  II      -             -  3.00 

Great  Scientists,  Book  I        -             -             -  3.00 

Great  Scientists,  Book  II            -             -  -             3.00 

Great  Lovers,  Book  I            -             -  3.00 

Great  Lovers,  Book  II                 -             -  -             3.00 

Great  Reformers,  Book  I      -             -             -  3.00 

Great  Reformers,  Book  II           -             -  -             8.00 

Great  Teachers,  Book  I         -             -             -  3.00 

Great  Teachers,  Book  II              -             -  -             3.00 

THE    ROYCROFTERS,    East    Aurora,  New    York 


E  who  gives  us 
better  homes, 
better  books, 
better  tools-^- 
a  fairer  outlook  and  a 
wider  hope — him  will 
we   crown  with   laurel 


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UCKY  IS 
THE LAND 
THAT  IS 


TILLED  BY   THE 
MEN  WHO  OWN  IT 


JAMES      OLIVER 


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Vol.  24 


MARCH,   MCMIX 


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is,  that  a  certain 
quantity  of  work  is 
necessary  to  pro- 
duce a  certain  quan- 


tity of  good  of  any  kind  whatever. 
If  you  want  knowledge,  you  must 
toil  for  it;  if  food,  you  must  toil  for  it; 
e,  you  must  toil  for  it 


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Entered  at  the  postofflce  at  East  Aurora.  New  York,  for  transmisiion  as  second-clasa  matter 
Copyright.  1008,  by  Elbert  Hubbard,  Editor  and  Publisher 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 

FIFTEENTH       YEAR 


FOR  Nineteen  Hundred  Nine,  LITTLE 
JOURNEYS  by  Elbert  Hubbard  will  be 
to  the  homes  of  Great  Business  Men.  Mr.  Hub- 
bard has  been  farm-hand,  office-boy,  printer's 
devil,  foreman,  editor,  manager,  proprietor.  He 
is  an  economist  himself — an  economist  of  time, 
money  and  materials.  Mr.  Hubbard  is  a  Farmer; 
he  also  operates  a  Bank,  a  Hotel,  a  Printing 
Shop,  a  Bookbindery    and  a  Guinea-hen  Garage 

Subjects   of   "Little  Journeys"    for   1909 

ROBERT  OWEN  JAMES  J.  HILL 

JAMES  OLIVER  MAYER  ROTHSCHILD 

STEPHEN  GIRARD  PETER  COOPER 

JOHN  D.  ARCHBOLD  AUGUST  SCHILLING 

JOHN  JACOB  ASTOR  JOHN  WANAMAKER 

PHILIP  D.  ARMOUR  ANDREW  CARNEGIE 

LITTLE  JOURNEYS,       -       One  Dollar  a  Year 
THE  ERA  Magazine,       -       Two  Dollars  a  Year 


Both  for  TWO  DOLLARS  if  you  Subscribeat  Once 


THE  ROYCROFTERS,      EAST  AURORA,  N.^Y. 


Health  and  Wealth 

BY  BLBERT  HUBBARD.  OF  EAST  AURORA 

HEREIN  is  pleasingly  told  how  to 
be  happy — but  not  too  happy — and 
yet  be  rich ;  containing  thoughts, 
always    sincere    and    sometimes 


serious,  concerning  the  best  methods  of 
preventing  one  from  becoming  a  burden  to 
himself,  a  weariness  to  his  friends,  a  trial 
to  his  neighbors  and  a  reflection  on  his 
Maker.  This  volume  tells  of  Roycroftism. 
C  Roycroftism  is  here,  and  it  is  slowly  but 
surely  increasing  in  influence. 
Roycroftism  does  not  claim  to  be  a  relig- 
ion— it  is  a  system  of  life.  This  system,  plan, 
method  or  habit,  does  not  seek  to  separate 
religion  from  work,  literature  from  life,  or 
art  from  play,  any  more  than  it  would  separate 
love  from  sociology  or  ethics  from  finance. 
The  price  of  Health  and  W5:alth  is 
TWO  DOLLARS,  bound  either 
in  limp  leather  or  in  boards,  leather  back. 

THE       ROY  CROFTERS 
EAST  AURORA,  ERIE  COUNTY,  NEW  YORK 


De  Luxe  Little  Journeys 

€LBERT  HUBBARD  writes  with  the  freedom 
and  enthusiasm  of  youth.  He  interests.  He 
educates.  He  inspires.  He  never  takes  one  round 
and  round  the  bush  to  a  fact.  Hubbard  magnet- 
izes words.  Occasionally  he  shocks  a  few  of  the 
Grandmother  Tipsytoe  Variety — naturally,  but  he 
electrifies  the  many.  Q  This  man's  pen  is  never 
gagged,  chained  or  chloroformed.  He  thinks  big, 
virile,  vital  thoughts,  and  as  he  thinks,  he  writes. 


>> 


Elbert  Hubbard's  * 'Little  Journeys 

to  the  Homes  of  Famous  People  are  a  treat  alike 
to  the  scholar  and  sage.  Q  The  following  on  hand: 


William   Morris 

Brahms 

Marat 

Tennyson 

Raphael 

Patrick  Henry 

Milton 

Leonardo 

Martin  Luther 

Dr.  Johnson 

Botticelli 

Beecher 

Addison 

Thorwaldsen 

Phillips 

Southey 

Gainsborough 

Socrates 

Coleridge 

Velasquez 

Seneca 

Paganini 

Corot 

Aristotle 

Mozart 

Correggio 

Aurelius 

Sebastian  Bach 

Bellini 

Spinoza 

Mendelssohn 

Cellini 

Swedenborg 

Franz  Liszt 

Abbey 

Kant 

Browning 

Whistler 

Comte 

Handel 

Pericles 

Voltaire 

Verdi 

Antony 

Herbert  Spencer 

Schumann 

Pitt 

Thoreau 

Printed  on  Holland  Hand-Made  watermarked  paper 
in  two  colors,  very  beautiful  type,  and  bound 
scrumptiously  for  the  Elect       -     -     -      $1.00  just 


TO  THE  HOSTS  OF  PHILISTIA 

GREETING 

►OU  are  requested  to  meet  at  Mecca 
— otherwise  East  Aurora — ^July  1st 
to  10th,  1909,  inclusive,  for  Mental 
massage  and  Spiritual  rejuvenation. 
If  you  can't  come,  you  are  ordered 
to  shrive  yourself  at  your  own  cos- 
mic shrine,  grant  yourself  absolution,  read  the 
'•Essay  on  Silence"  for  five  minutes  night  and 
morning,  during  the  dates  above  named,  and 
think  well  of  everybody,  including  Bok.  Hypoc- 
risy, hypo-neurasthenia,  false  pride  and  gossip 
germs  should  be  left  at  home,  as  the  spirit  of 
Brotherhood  will  be  supreme  and  only  Good 
immanent.  There  are  two  formal  services  daily, 
afternoon  and  evening.  Tips  are  tabu,  and  the 
offertory  auskerspiel.  The  only  tariff  is  for 
room  and  meals  (like  those  mother  used  to 
make),  the  rate  being  Two  Dolodocci  a  day,  and 
up,  according  to  apartments.  Reservations  can 
be  made  now     J'>Jt>J>J^Jt>J'jf'J>J' 

THE     PHALANSTERIE 
East  Aurora,  Erie  County,  New  York 


iio^unm 


TO  THI=  HOhflg513R 


IHE^^l^im 


BY  ELBERT 


STEPHEN  GIRARD 


15  s 


NOriF  •  IMTf>-^ 


BDDBZBZnHB 


sigFR^T-  FiiTiTDrm  sr  sig 


30  SE  EmEzsazQia  SE  Mg 


S0  Sg  HESeZYnKH  SE  SE 


sgffl^^^^fflffl 


I  DO  not  value  fortune.  The  love  of  labor  is  my  sheet- 
anchor.  I  work  that  I  may  forget,  and  forgetting,  I  am 
happy. — Stephen  Girard. 


STEPHEN      GIRARD 


TT-P 


K-O'  I, 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 


The  character  of  the  people  is  shown  by  the  regard  they 
have  for  their  great  men,  their  heroes  and  their  benefactors. 

HEN  we  make  a  census  of  the 
sensible,  and  count  the  competent, 
we  cannot  leave  out  the  name  of 
William  Penn.  He  was  the  founder 
of  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  and  of 

W-^iiy-\  the  great  Commonwealth  of  Penn- 
^P^  sylvania,  and  gave  name  and  fame 
^fc>43    to  both. 

In  this  respect  of  being  founded  by 
an  individual,  Philadelphia,  the 
City  of  Brotherly  Love,  and  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  are  unique 
and  peculiar  in  all  the  annals  of  American  history. 
Yet  Philadelphia  has  no  monument  of  Penn,  save  the  hazy 
figure  of  a  dumpy  nobody  surmounted  by  an  enormous  hat, 
all  lost  in  the  incense  of  commerce  upon  the  topmost  pin- 
nacle of  the  City  Hall. 

If  Philadelphia  has  been  sky-piloted  by  her  orthodox  Wither- 
spoons  and  Albertsons,  by  her  Converses  and  Conwells, 
and  if  they  have  taught  her  to  love  her  enemies  and  then 
hold  balances  true  by  hating  her  friends,  let  Clio  so  record, 
for  history  is  no  longer  a  lie  agreed  upon.  In  her  magnificent 
park  and  in  her  public  squares  Philadelphia  has  done  honor 
in  bronze  and  marble  to  Columbus,  Humboldt,  Schubert, 
Goethe,  Schiller,  Garibaldi  and  Joan  of  Arc.  But  ''Mad 
Anthony  Wayne, "  and  that  fearless  fighting  youth,  Decatur, 

77 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

are  absolutely  forgotten.  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  patriot,  the 
near  and  dear  friend  of  Franklin,  and  the  man  who  welcomed 
Thomas  Paine  to  Pennsylvania,  and  gave  him  a  desk  where 
he  might  ply  his  pen  and  write  the  pamphlet,  "Common 
Sense, "  sleeps  in  an  unknown  grave.  You  will  look  in  vain 
for  eflSgies  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who  was  once  a  Philadelphia 
editor;  of  Edwin  Forrest,  who  lion-like,  trod  her  boards; 
of  Ritterhouse,  mapping  the  stars;  of  Dr.  Kane,  facing 
Arctic  ice  and  Northern  night;  of  Dr.  Evans,  who  filed  and 
filled  the  teeth  of  royalty  and  made  dentists  popular;  of 
Bartram,  Gross,  or  Leidy.  Fulton  lived  here,  yet  only  the 
searcher  in  dusty,  musty  tomes  knows  it,  and  Benjamin 
West,  who  founded  England's  Academy  of  Painting,  is 
honored  in  Westminster  Abbey,  but  Harrisburg,  too  busy 
in  her  great  game  of  grab  and  graft,  knows  not  his  name. 
Robert  Morris,  who  was  rewarded  for  his  life  of  patriotic 
service  by  two  years  in  a  debtor's  jail,  is  still  in  a  cell,  the 
key  of  which  is  lost — and  Sully,  Peale,  Taylor,  Walter  and 
Fitch  mingle  their  dust  with  his. 

Yet  all  this  might  be  forgiven  on  the  plea  that  where  so 
many  names  of  the  strong  and  powerful  bid  for  recognition, 
to  avoid  jealousies,  a  good  way  is  to  ignore  them  all.  So 
speaks  proud  and  pious  Philadelphia — snug,  smug,  pros- 
perous, priggish  and  pedantic  Philadelphia.  But  how  about 
these  five  supremely  great  names — William  Penn,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  Thomas  Paine,  Stephen  Girard  and  Walt  Whitman  i 
^  Oh !  ye  Friends,  innocent  of  friendship,  will  ye  forever 
try  to  smother  these  by  your  silence,  simply  because  they 
failed  to  do  theological  goose-step  on  your  order,  as  your 
78 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 


bum-beadles  marked  time  with  their  staves?  Q  Oh !  ye  cities 
and  nations,  cherish,  I  pray  you,  the  names  of  your  heroes 
in  business,  art,  finance  and  poetry,  for  only  by  them'^and 
through  these  shall  the  future  know  you.  Have  a  care,  ye  cities ! 
for  the  treatment  that  ye  accord  to  these  living  and  to  their 
memories,  dead,  is   the   record   of  your   heart  and  brain! 


He  who  influences  the  thought  of  his  time,  influences  the 
thought  of  all  the  times  that  follow. 


ENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  founded  the 
Philadelphia  Public  Library,  the 
Philadelphia  Hospital,  the  Phil- 
adelphia Orphan  Asylum  and  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania. 
Franklin  was  also  much  inter- 
ested in  good  roads,  the  building 
of  canals — steam  railroads  were 
then,  of  course,  a  dream  un- 
guessed  J>  J> 

Girard  got  his  philanthropic  im- 
petus from  Franklin.  Girard  had 

watched  the  progress  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 

and  he  had  become  convinced  that  it  fell  short  of  doing 

the  good  it  might  do.  It  shot  too  high. 

Franklin  had  a  beautiful  contempt  for  Harvard.  He  called 

79 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

it  a:  social  promotion  plan,  and  thereby  got  the  lasting 
enmity  of  John  Adams  and  his  son,  John  Quincy  Adams, 
and  also  John  Hancock. 

Franklin  had  hoped  to  make  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 
a  different  school.  But  after  his  death  it  followed  in  exactly 
the  Harvard  lines.  It  fitted  prosperous  youth  for  the  pro- 
fessions, but  it  left  the  orphan  and  the  outcast  to  struggle 
with  the  demons  of  darkness,  discarded  and  forgotten.  Girard 
founded  his  college  with  the  idea  of  helping  the  helpless. 
Thomas  Jefferson,  also,  had  impressed  Girard  greatly. 
Girard  once  made  a  trip  to  Monticello;  and  had  spent  two 
days  at  the  University  of  Virginia.  This  was  really  remark- 
able, for  time  with  Girard  was  a  very  precious  commodity. 
^  Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  man  who  introduced  Classic 
Architecture  in  America.  All  of  those  great  white  pillars 
that  front  the  mansions  of  Virginia,  and  in  fact  the  whole 
South,  had  their  germ  in  the  brain  of  Jefferson,  who  reveled 
in  all  that  was  Greek.  Jefferson  was  a  composite  of  Socrates, 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  if  Socrates  were  not  the  first  Jeffer- 
sonian  Democrat,  then  who  was? 

Socrates  dwelt  on  the  rights  and  virtues  of  the  "demos'* 
— the  Common  People.  Jefferson  uses  the  expression  again 
and  again  and  was  the  one  man  to  popularize  the  word, 
"Democrat."  When  Jefferson,  wearing  his  suit  of  butternut 
homespun,  rode  horseback  up  to  the  Washington  Capitol 
and  tied  his  horse  and  walked  over  to  the  office  of  the  Chief 
Justice  as  President  of  the  United  States  and  took  the  oath 
of  office,  his  action  was  essentially  Socratic. 
Girard  got  both  his  ideals  of  architecture  and  education 
80 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

from  Jefferson.  C|Girard  was  too  busy  to  do  much 
original  investigation,  for  he  was  a  very  rich  man- 
so  he  did  the  next  best  thing,  and  the  thing  that  all 
wise,  busy  men  do — he  picked  a  few  authors  and  banked 
on  them. 

Girard  loved  Benjamin  Franklin,  Thomas  Jefferson  and 
Thomas  Paine.  And  one  reason  why  he  was  drawn  to  them 
was  because  they  all  spoke  French,  and  he  had  a  high  regard 
for  the  French  people.  Franklin  and  Jefferson  were  each 
sent  on  various  important  diplomatic  missions  to  France. 
Paine  was  a  member  of  the  French  Assembly,  and  Girard 
never  ceased  to  regret  that  Paine  was  saved  from  the  guil- 
lotine by  that  happy  accident  of  the  death  messenger  chalking 
the  inside  of  his  cell  door  instead  of  the  outside.  "If  they  had 
only  cut  off  his  head,  he  then  would  have  been  recorded  in 
American  schoolbooks  as  the  Hon.  Thomas  Paine,  assis- 
tant Savior  of  his  country,  instead  of  being  execrated  as  Tom 
Paine,  the  infidel,"  said  Girard. 

In  the  time  of  Girard,  the  names  of  Franklin,  Jefferson  and 
Paine  were  reviled,  renounced  and  denounced  by  good 
society,  and  it  was  in  defending  these  men  that  Girard 
brought  down  upon  himself  the  contumely  that  endures, 
in  attenuation,  at  least,  even  unto  this  day. 
Let  these  facts  stand :  Franklin  taught  Girard  the  philosophy 
of  business  and  fixed  in  his  mind  the  philanthropic  bias. 
^Jefferson  taught  Girard  the  excellence  of  the  "demos," 
and  at  the  same  time  gave  him  an  unforgetable  glimpse 
of  Greek  architecture. 

Paine  taught  Girard  the  iniquity  and  folly  of  a  dogmatic 

8i 


Stephen      girard 

religion — the  religion  that  was  so  sure  it  was  right,  and  so 
certain  that  all  others  were  wrong  that  it  v/ould,  if  it  could, 
force  humanity  at  point  of  the  sword  to  accept  its  standards. 
^  Franklin  and  Paine  were  citizens  of  Philadelphia,  and 
Jefferson  spent  many  months  there.  The  pavements  that  had 
echoed  to  their  tread,  were  daily  pressed  by  the  feet  of  Girard. 
Their  thoughts  were  his.  And  when  pestilence  settled  on  the 
city  like  a  shadow,  and  death  had  marked  the  doorposts  of 
over  half  the  homes  in  the  city  with  the  sign  of  silence, 
Girard  did  not  absolve  himself  by  drawing  a  check  and  send- 
ing it  to  a  committee  by  mail.  Not  he!  He  asked  himself, 
"What  would  Franklin  have  done  under  these  conditions?** 
And  he  answered  the  question  by  going  into  the  pest-house, 
doing  for  the  stricken,  the  dying  and  the  dead  what  the 
pitying  Christ  would  have  done  had  He  been  on  earth. 
Girard  believed  in  humanity,  he  believed  in  men  as  did 
Franklin,  Jefferson  and  Paine,  and  as  did  that  other  great 
citizen  of  Philadelphia,  who,  too,  was  willing  to  give  his 
life  in  the  hospitals  that  men  might  live — Walt  Whitman. 
^  No  one  ever  called  Walt  Whitman  a  financier.  Some 
have  said  that  Stephen  Girard  was  nothing  else.  In  any 
event  Girard  and  Whitman,  between  them,  hold  averages 
true.  And  they  both  believed  in  and  loved  humanity.  And  here 
is  a  fact :  when  we  make  up  the  composite  man — the  perfect 
man — taking  our  human  material  from  American  history, 
we  cannot  omit  from  our  formula  Benjamin  Franklin,Thoma8 
Jefferson,  Thomas  Paine,  Stephen  Girard  and  Walt  Whitman. 


82 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 


Conquer  your  grief;  or  it  will  conquer  you.  Conquer  your 

grief  and  Vrno-r  thereby  that  you  are  a  man. 


TEPHEN  GIRARD  was  bom  at 
Bordeaux,  France,  in  Seventeen 
Hundred  and  Fifty.  He  died  at 
Philadelphia  in  Eighteen  Hundred 
and  Thirty-one. 

Immediately  after  his  death  there 
was  printed  a  book  which  pur- 
ported to  be  his  biography.  It  was 
the  work  of  a  bank  clerk  who  had 
been  discharged  by  Girard.  This 
man  had  been  close  enough  to  his 
employer  to  lend  plausibility  to 
much  that  he  had  to  say,  and  as  the  author  called  himself 
Girard's  private  secretary,  people  with  prejudices  plus, 
pointed  to  the  printed  page  as  authority.  The  voliune  served 
to  fill  the  popular  demand  for  pishmince.  It  was  written  with 
exactly  the  same  intent  which  Cheetham,  who  wrote  his 
"Life  of  Thomas  Paine,"  brought  to  bear.  The  desire  was 
to  damn  the  subject  for  all  time.  Beside  that,  it  was  a  great 
business  stroke— calumny  was  made  to  pay  dividends.  To 
libel  the  dead  is  not,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  a  crime. 
No  such  book  as  this  **Life  of  Girard"  could  ever  have 
been  circulated  about  a  living  man.  "Once  upon  a  time  an 
ass  kicked  a  lion,  but  the  lion  was  dead." 
Yet  this  libelous  production  was  reprinted  as  late  as 
Eighteen    Hundred    and    Ninety.    Cheetham's    book    was 

83 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

quoted  as  an  authority  on  Thomas  Paine  until  the  year 
Nineteen  Hundred,  when  Moncure  D.  Conway's  exhaust- 
ive "Life"  made  the  pious  prevaricators  absurd. 
From  being  a  bitter  "infidel,"  a  hater  of  humanity,  grossly 
ignorant  and  wholly  indifferent  to  the  decencies,  we  now 
view  Girard  as  a  lonely  and  pathetic  figure,  living  out  his 
long  life  in  untiring  industry,  always  honest,  direct,  frank, 
handicapped  by  physical  defects,  wistful  in  his  longing  for 
love,  helpless  to  express  what  he  felt,  with  a  heart  that  went 
out  to  children  in  a  great  welling  desire  to  give  them  what 
fate  had  withheld  from  him. 

Stephen  Girard's  parents  were  lowly  and  obscure  people. 
They  were  Catholics.  His  father  was  a  sailor  and  fisherman. 
Fear,  hate,  superstition,  ignorance,  ruled  the  household.  When 
the  father  had  money  it  went  for  strong  drink,  or  to  the  priest. 
Probably,  it  would  have  been  as  well  if  the  priest  had  gotten 
it  all.  The  mother  went  out  as  servant  and  worked  by  the  day 
for  her  more  fortunate  neighbors.  The  children  cared  for  each 
other,  if  the  word  "care"  can  be  used  to  express  a  condition 
of  neglect  and  indifference. 

It  might  be  pleasant  to  show,  if  possible,  that  the  mother 
of  Stephen  Girard  had  certain  tender,  womanly  qualities, 
but  the  fact  is  that  none  such  were  ever  manifested.  If  there 
was  ever  any  soft  sentiment  in  her  character  the  fond  father 
of  his  flock  had  kicked  it  out  of  her.  That  she  was  usually 
able  to  hold  her  own  in  fair  fight  was  the  one  redeeming 
memory  that  the  son  held  concerning  her. 
Stephen  was  the  eldest  of  the  brood  ^  He  attended  the 
parochial  school  and  learned  to  read.  His  playmates  called 
84 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

him  by  a  French  term  meaning  ** Twisted."  He  was  eight 
years  of  age  before  he  realized  that  the  names  his  mother 
called  him  by  were  of  contempt  and  not  of  endearment — 
"Wall-eye"  and  "Mud-sucker" — literally  the  vocabulary  of 
a  fishwife.  Then  he  knew  for  the  first  time  that  his  eyes  were 
not  like  those  of  other  children — that  one  eye  had  a  bluish 
cast  in  it  and  turned  inward.  That  night  he  cried  himself  to 
sleep  thinking  over  his  dire  misfortune. 
At  school  when  he  read  he  closed  one  eye  and  this  made 
the  children  laugh.  So  did  their  taunts  prey  upon  him  that 
he  ran  away  from  school  to  escape  their  gibes. 
One  of  the  Friars  Grey  caught  him;  whipped  him  before 
the  whole  school;  put  a  dtmce-cap  on  his  head  and  stood 
him  on  a  high  chair.  Then  his  humiliation  seemed  complete. 
He  prayed  for  death.  At  home  when  he  tried  to  tell  his  mother 
about  his  trouble,  she  laughed,  and  boxed  his  ears  for  being 
a  "cry-baby  brat."  ^ Back  in  this  boy's  ancestry,  some- 
where, there  must  have  been  a  stream  of  gentle  blood.  He 
was  a  song-bird  in  a  cuckoo's  nest.  When  the  military 
band  played,  his  spirit  was  so  moved  that  he  shed  tears. 
But  when  his  mother  died,  and  her  body  was  placed  in  a 
new  board  coffin,  made  by  a  neighbor  who  worked  in  the 
shipyard,  he  admired  the  coffin,  but  could  not  cry  even 
when  the  priest  pinched  him  and  called  him  hard-hearted. 
He  could  not  cry  even  with  his  twisted  eye.  His  mother,  as 
a  lovable  being,  had  gone  out  of  his  life,  even  before  she 
died.  He  could  only  think  what  a  beautiful  coffin  she  had 
and  what  a  great  man  it  was  who  made  it.  And  this  man 
who  made  the  coffin  gave  him  a  penny — perhaps  because  the 

85 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

boy  so  appreciated  his  handiwork.  ^  Stephen,  unconsciously, 
won  him  on  the  side  of  art. 

It 's  a  terrible  thing  to  kill  love  in  the  heart  of  a  child.  That 
popular  belief  that  we  are  "bom  in  sin  and  conceived  in 
iniquity,"  Girard  once  said,  was  true  in  his  case,  at  least. 
^  Yet  so  wondrous  were  the  works  of  God,  the  hate  and 
brutality  visited  upon  their  child  went  into  the  making 
of  his  strong  and  self-reliant  character.  He  never  said, 
"My  mother's  religion  is  good  enough  for  me."  He  de- 
spised her  religion,  and  that  of  the  Friars  Grey  who  punished 
boys  to  make  them  good.  His  mind  turned  inward — he 
became  silent,  secretive,  self-centered,  and  his  repulsive 
exterior  served  him  well  as  a  tough  husk  to  hide  his  finer 
emotions  .^  ^ 

In  a  few  months — or  was  it  a  few  weeks? — after  his  mother's 
death,  the  father  married  again.  The  stepmother  was  no 
improvement  on  the  mother.  She  had  lofty  ideas  of  discipline 
and  being  "minded."  No  doubt  but  that  little  Stephen, 
crooked  in  eyes,  crooked  in  body,  short  and  swart,  with 
brown,  bare  legs,  was  stubborn  and  wilful.  He  looked  the 
part  all  right.  His  brown,  bare  legs  were  a  temptation  for 
the  stepmother's  willow  switch.  He  decided  to  relieve 
everybody  of  the  temptation  of  switching  his  legs  by  numing 
away  to  sea  and  taking  his  brown,  bare  legs  with  him. 
There  was  a  ship  at  the  docks  about  to  sail  for  the  West 
Indies.  He  could  secrete  himself  among  the  bales  and  barrels, 
and  once  the  ship  was  out  of  port  he  would  come  out  and 
take  chances  on  being  accepted  as  cabin-boy.  They  could 
do  no  more  than  throw  him  overboard,  anyway  I 
86 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

He  told  his  little  sisters  of  his  intention.  They  cried,  but 
he  did  n't.  He  had  n't  cried  since  he  was  eight  years  old,  and 
his  cheerfxil  biographer  says  he  never  shed  a  tear  afterward, 
and  I  guess  that  is  so. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  whispered  good-bye  to 
his  little  sleeping  sisters.  He  did  not  kiss  them — he  never 
kissed  anybody  in  his  whole  life,  his  biographer  says,  and 
I  guess  that  may  be  so,  too.  He  stole  down-stairs  and  out 
into  the  moonlight.  The  dock  was  only  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away.  The  ship  was  to  sail  at  daylight,  on  the  turn  of  the 
tide.  There  was  much  commotion  going  on  around  the  boat, 
battening  down  hatches  and  doing  the  last  few  necessary 
things  before  braving  the  reeling  deep. 
Little  Stephen  was  watching  his  chance  to  get  aboard.  He 
was  going  as  a  stowaway.  A  man  came  up  to  him.  It  was 
the  captain,  and  before  the  lad  could  escape  the  man  said, 
**Here,  I  want  a  cabin-boy — will  you  go?" 
The  boy  thanked  God  that  it  was  night,  so  the  captain 
could  not  see  his  crooked  eye,  and  gasped,  "Yes— yes!" 
^  The  cook  was  making  coffee  in  the  galley  for  the  steve- 
dores who  had  just  finished  loading  the  ship.  The  captain 
took  the  boy  by  the  hand  and  leading  him  up  the  plank  to 
the  galley  told  the  cook  to  give  him  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a 
biscuit.  §The  ship  pushed  off,  and  hoisted  sail,  just  at 
daylight  on  the  turn  of  the  tide. 
The  tide,  too,  had  turned  for  Stephen  Girard. 


87 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

Happiness  is  the  rightful  heritage  of  childhood. 


VERY  little  observation  will  show 
that  physical  defects,  when  backed 
up  by  mental  worth,  transform 
themselves  into  "beauty  spots." 
To  be  sure,  no  one  was  ever  so 
bold  as  to  speak  of  Girard*s  blem- 
ishes as  beauty  spots,  but  the  fact 
is  that  his  homely  face  and  un- 
graceful body  were  strong  factors 
in  making  him  a  favorite  of 
fortime.  Handsome  is  that  hand- 
some does  .^  Disadvantages  are 
often  advantages — they  serve  as  stimulus  and  bring  out 
the  best. 

Young  Girard  had  long  arms  and  short  legs,  and  could  climb 
fast  and  high.  And  he  could  see  more  with  his  one  eye  than 
most  men  could  with  two.  He  expected  no  favor  on  account 
of  his  family  or  good  looks,  and  so  made  himself  necessary 
to  the  captain  of  the  craft  as  a  matter  of  self-preservation. 
^Not  all  sea-captains  are  brutal,  nor  do  all  sailors  talk 
in  a  hoarse  guttural,  shift  their  quids,  hitch  their  trousers 
and  preface  their  remarks  with,  "Shiver  my  timbers." 
That  first  captain  with  whom  Stephen  Girard  sailed  was 
young — twenty-six,  a  mere  youth,  with  a  first  mate  twice 
his  years.  He  was  mild-mannered,  gentle-voiced  and  owned 
a  copy  of  Voltaire's  "Philosophical  Dictionary."  His  name 
is  lost  to  us  even  the  name  of  his  ship  has  foundered  in 
88 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

the  fog,  but  that  he  was  yoting,  gentle  and  read  Voltaire 
are  facts  recorded  in  the  crooked  and  twisted  handwriting 
of  Stephen  Girard,  facts  which  even  his  blackguard  biog- 
rapher admitted. 

The  new  cabin-boy  was  astonished  that  one  so  young  could 
be  captain  of  a  ship;  he  was  also  astonished  that  a  person 
who  gave  orders  in  a  gentle  voice  could  have  them  executed. 
Later,  he  learned  that  the  men  whose  orders  are  always 
obeyed  do  not  talk  loudly  nor  in  guttural.  This  first  boyish 
captain  taught  Girard  a  splendid  lesson — to  moderate  both 
manner  and  voice  and  be  effective. 

Of  that  first  voyage,  about  all  we  know  is  that  the  boy  slept 
on  a  pile  of  gunny  sacks ;  that  the  captain  let  him  read  from 
the  "Philosophical  Dictionary;"  that  he  polished  the  bright 
work  until  it  served  as  a  mirror;  that  the  captain  smiled 
his  approval,  and  that  the  boy,  short  and  swart,  with  bullet 
head,  followed  him  with  one  eye  and  worshiped  him  as 
Deity  jt  jt 

Men  do  not  succeed  by  chance.  Chance  may  toss  you  into 
a  position  of  power,  but  if  you  do  not  possess  capacity,  you 
can  never  hold  the  place. 

Young  Girard  gravitated  from  the  position  of  cabin-boy  to 
clerk  ^  J^ 

From  this  to  mate  came  by  easy  stages,  and  so  much  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  it  isn't  worth  while  to  mention  how. 
^  By  the  law  of  France  no  man  under  twenty-five  could  be 
captain  of  a  ship,  but  when  Girard  was  twenty-two  we  find 
a  ship-owner  falsifying  the  record  and  putting  the  boy  down 
as  twenty-five,  on  the  obliging  oath  of  the  boy's  father, 

89 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

whom  we  hope  was  duly  paid  for  his  pains.  ^  At  twenty-four, 
Captain  Stephen  Girard  sailed  his  sloop,  **  L*Amiable  Louise, " 
around  Sandy  Hook  and  up  New  York  Bay.  Ship  captains 
then  were  merchants,  with  power  to  sell,  trade  and  buy. 
The  venture  was  a  success,  and  young  Girard  took  the  liberty 
of  picking  up  a  cargo  and  sailing  for  New  Orleans — his 
knowledge  of  French  being  a  valuable  asset  for  that  par- 
ticular destination. 

Matters  were  prosperous,  and  Girard  was  twenty-six,  just 
the  age  of  that  heroic  captain,  under  whose  care  he  first 
set  sail,  and  the  age  of  the  Corsican  when  he  conquered 
Italy  J^  J^ 

Girard  had  ceased  to  wonder  about  boys  braving  waves  and 
going  upon  the  stormy  sea  in  ships. 

It  was  in  July,  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Seventy-six, — call 
it  July  Fourth — that  Captain  Stephen  Girard  was  skirting 
the  coast  of  the  Atlantic,  feeling  his  way  through  a  fog 
toward  New  York.  He  was  not  sure  of  his  course  and  was 
sailing  by  dead  reckoning. 

Suddenly  the  fog  lifted.  The  sun  stood  out,  a  great  golden 
ball  in  the  sky.  The  young  captain  swung  his  glass  along 
the  horizon  and  with  his  one  good  eye  saw  a  sail — it  was 
bearing  down  upon  him. 
It  was  coming  closer. 

In  an  hour  it  was  a  mile  away.  He  realized  that  he  was  the 
objective  point.  ^  It  was  a  British  cruiser,  and  he  then  real- 
ized that  he  was  to  be  forced  upon  the  beach  or  captured. 
5  Girard  was  not  a  praying  man,  but  he  prayed  now  for  a 
friendly  cove  or  bay,  or  the  mouth  of  a  river.  The  fog  rolled 
90 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

away  to  the  west,  the  shore-line  showed  sharp  and  clear — 
and  there  a  half-mile  away  was  the  inviting  mouth  of  Chesa- 
peake Bay.  At  least  Girard  thought  it  was,  but  it  proved  to 
be  the  mouth  of  the  Delaware.  Girard  crowded  on  all  sail 
— the  cruiser  did  the  same. 
Night  settled  down. 

Before  morning  Girard*s  little  craft  was  safe  tmder  the 
frowning  forts  of  the  Delaware,  and  the  cruiser  had  turned 
back  seeking  fresh  prey. 


Only  the  good  can  reach  me,  and  no  thought  of  love  you 
send  me  can  be  lost. 


y 


N  one  of  his  trips  to  the  West 
Indies,  the  ship  of  which  Stephen 
Girard  was  mate  stopped  at  the 
Isle  of  Martinique. 
The  captain  and  mate  went  ashore, 
and  were  invited  to  dine  at  the 
house  of  a  merchant  and  planter 
up  on  the  hillside  overlooking  the 
sea.  The  sugar  with  which  the 
ship  was  loading  belonged  to  this 
planter,  hence  the  courtesies  to 
the  seafaring  men.  It  was  a  great 
event  to  Girard.  He  would  have  evaded  it  if  he  could,  and 

91 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

yet  he  wanted  to  see  how  folks  who  lived  in  houses  reaUy 
acted  Ji  J' 

Of  that  seemingly  uneventful  day  one  incident  stood  out 
in  the  mind  of  Girard  to  the  day  of  his  death.  It  seems  the 
merchant  and  planter  had  a  niece  who  lived  in  his  household. 
This  girl  sat  at  the  table  next  to  Girard.  She  was  only  a  child, 
about  twelve  years  of  age.  But  women  mature  yoimg  in 
that  climate,  and  her  presence  caused  the  little  first  mate 
to  lose  all  appetite.  However,  nothing  worse  happened  than 
the  spilling  of  a  dish  of  soup  in  his  lap,  when  the  girl  tried 
to  pass  the  plate  to  him,  which  was  surely  more  polite  than 
to  spill  it  in  hers. 

After  dinner  the  young  lady  accompanied  the  party  down 
to  the  wharf  .Going  down  the  hill  she  talked,  and  talked  a 
good  deal,  but  Girard  could  only  say  it  was  a  fine  day  and 
looked  as  if  there  was  going  to  be  a  storm. 
This  girl  was  tall,  angular  and  strong.  She  climbed  the 
rigging  to  the  lookout,  and  then  was  scolded  by  her  uncle, 
who  was  really  proud  of  her  and  chuckled  at  her  perfor- 
mance. Her  features  were  rather  coarse,  but  her  lustrous 
eyes  and  bubbling  vitality  caused  the  one  sound  peeper  of 
Girard  to  follow  her  in  awe  and  reverence. 
She  came  into  the  cabin  and  looked  at  his  books ;  this  pleased 
Girard.  He  asked  her  if  she  could  read  and  she  loftily  wrote 
her  name  for  him,  thus:  Marie  Josephine  Rose  Tascher  de 
la  Pagerie. 

She  handed  him  the  slip  of  paper  and  remarked,  **You 
could  never  remember  my  name  so  I  write  it  out  for  you 
like  this.»» 

pa 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

In  a  few  minutes  the  order  was  given,  "All  ashore  who  are 
going  ashore!" 

Girard  kept  that  slip  of  paper,  and  a  few  years  afterward, 
in  a  generous  mood,  sent  the  girl  a  present  of  a  blue  shawl. 
fl  She  wrote  in  acknowledgment,  and  incidentally  said  she 
was  soon  to  sail  for  France  "to  get  an  education." 
Girard  was  surprised  that  any  woman  would  want  an 
education,  and  still  more  amazed  at  the  probability  that 
she  could  acquire  one.  In  fact,  when  the  girl  had  written 
her  name  for  him,  he  kept  the  slip  of  paper  more  as  a 
curiosity  than  anything  else — it  was  the  handwriting  of 
a  woman !  ^  Girard  never  received  but  that  one  letter  from 
the  young  lady,  but  from  his  shipping  agent  in  Martinique 
word  came  that  Marie  Josephine  Rose  had  married,  when 
sixteen,  the  Vicomte  Beauharnais. 

Some  years  after,  Girard  heard  from  the  same  source  that 
she  was  a  widow. 

Later,  he  learned  that  she  married  a  Corsican  by  the  name 
of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 


96 


STEPHEN 


G     I     R     A     R     D 


The  less  you  require  looking  after,  the  more  valuable  is 
vour  life. 


IRARD  used  to  say  that  he  did 
not  come  to  Philadelphia  of  his 
own  accord,  but  having  been  sent 
there  by  Providence,  he  made  the 
best  of  it. 

War  was  on,  and  all  American 
ports  were  blockaded.  How  long 
this  war  would  last,  no  one  knew. 
Girard*s  sympathies  were  with  the 
Colonies,  and  the  cause  of  liberty 
was  strong  in  his  heart.  He  was 
glad  that  France — his  La  Belle 
France — had  loaned  us  money  wherewith  to  fight  England. 
Yet  all  his  instincts  were  opposed  to  violence  and  the  pomps 
of  army  life  for  him  had  no  lure. 

He  unloaded  his  ship,  put  the  craft  at  safe  anchorage  and 
settled  down,  trying  to  be  patient.  He  could  have  sold  his 
cargo  outright,  but  he  had  a  head  for  business — prices  were 
rising,  and  he  had  time — he  had  all  the  time  there  was.  He 
rented  a  store  on  Water  Street  and  opened  up  at  retail.  It 
was  the  best  way  to  kill  time  until  the  war  closed. 
The  rogue  biographer  has  told  us  that  Girard*s  ship  was 
loaded  with  **niggers,"  and  that  these  were  sold  by  the 
mercenary  captain  and .  the  money  pocketed  by  himself, 
"all  being  fair  in  love  and  war." 

This  tale  of  business  buccaneering  has  long  been  exploded, 
94 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

but  it  is  a  fact  that  the  cargo  was  used  by  Girard  as  his 
first  capital.  He  used  the  money  wisely  and  well,  and  repaid 
the  other  owners — one-third  being,  his  own  property — with 
interest  «^  J^ 

When  the  war  was  over,  it  was  expected  that  Captain  Girard 
would  again  take  to  the  deck  and  manage  his  craft.  But 
this  was  not  to  be.  That  there  was  a  goodly  dash  of  sentiment^ 
in  his  nature  is  shown  in  that,  after  ten  years,  he  bought 
the  boat  and  would  have  kept  her  for  life,  had  she  not  been 
wrecked  on  the  Florida  Reefs  and  her  bones  given  to  the 
barracout  ^  Jt^ 

In  front  of  Girard's  little  store  on  Water  Street  there  was  a 
pump,  patronized  by  the  neighbors. 

Girard  had  been  there  about  three  months.  He  was  lonely, 
cooped  up  there  on  land,  sighing  for  the  open  sea.  Every 
day  he  would  row  across  to  his  ship  and  look  her  over, 
sweeping  the  deck,  tarring  the  ropes,  greasing  the  chains, 
calculating  how  soon  she  could  be  made  ready  for  sea, 
should  news  of  peace  come. 
The  weeks  dragged  slowly  away. 

Girard  sat  on  a  box  and  watched  the  neighbors  who  came 
to  the  pump  for  water.  Occasionally,  there  would  toddle  a 
child  with  jug  or  pail,  and  then  the  crooked  little  store- 
keeper would  come  forward  and  work  the  pump-handle. 
Among  others,  came  PoUie  Lumm,  plump,  pretty,  pink  and 
sixteen  J>  ^ 

Girard  pimiped  for  her,  too. 

He  got  into  the  habit  of  pumping  for  her.  If  he  was  busy, 
she  would  wait. 

95 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

Pollie  Lumm  was  a  sort  of  cousin  to  Sallie  Lunn.  Neither  had 
intellect  to  speak  of.  Pollie  had  the  cosmic  urge,  that  is  all, 
and  the  marooned  sea-captain  had  in  him  a  little — just  a 
little — of  the  salt  of  the  sea. 

Fate  is  a  trickster.  Her  game  is  based  on  false  pretences — 
she  should  be  forbidden  the  mails. 

She  sacrifices  individuals  by  the  thousand,  for  the  good  of 
the  race.  All  she  cares  for  is  to  perpetuate  the  kind. 
Poor  sailor  man,  innocent  of  petticoats,  caught  in  the 
esoteric  web,  pumping  water  for  Pollie  Lumm — Pollie  Lumm 
— plump,  pert,  pink  and  pretty.  ^  And  so  they  were  married. 
^  Their  wedding  journey  was  in  a  scow,  across  to  the  bride- 
groom's ship,  riding  at  anchor,  her  cordage  creaking  in  the 
rising  breeze. 

Pollie  Lumm,  the  bride  of  a  day,  was  frightened,  there  alone 
with  a  one-eyed  man,  when  the  rats  went  scurrying  through 
the  hold.  She  was  n't  pink  now,  her  color  had  turned  to 
ashy  yellow  and  her  heart  to  ashes  of  roses.  Girard  could 
face  the  wind  of  the  North,  but  a  crying  woman  on  a  ship 
at  anchor,  whose  rusty  chains  groaned  to  the  dismal  screech 
of  tugging  cordage,  undid  him.  A  lesser  man — a  devil-may- 
care  fellow — could  have  met  the  issue.  Girard,  practical, 
sensible,  silent,  was  no  mate  for  prettiness,  plump  and  pink. 
He  should  have  wedded  a  widow  who  could  have  passed 
him  a  prehensile  hawser  and  taken  his  soul  in  tow. 
The  bride  and  groom  rowed  back,  bedraggled,  to  the  room 
over  the  store. 

Polly  could  n't  cook — she  could  not  figure — she  could  not 
keep  store — she  could  not  read  the   "Philosophical  Dic- 
96, 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

tionary" — nor  cotild  she  even  listen  while  her  husband 

read,  without  nodding  her  sleepy  head.  No  baby  came  to 

rescue  her  from  the  shoals,  and  by  responsibility  and  care 

win  her  safely  back  to  sanity. 

Poor  Pollie  Lumm  Girard! 

Poor  Silly  Sailor  Man! 

Venus  played  a  trick  on  you — didn't  she,  and  on  herself, 

too,  the  jade! 

Pollie  became  stout — enormously  stout — the  pearl-like  pink 

of  her  cheek  now  looked  like  burnt  sienna,  mixed  with 

chrome  yellow.  She  used  to  sit  all  day  in  front  of  the  store, 

looking  at  the  pump. 

She  ceased  to  see  the  pump ;  she  did  not  even  hear  its  creak, 

which  she  once  thought  musical.  Q  Her  husband  sent  for  a 

doctor.  "Chronic  dementia,"  the  doctor  diagnosed  it. 

She  was  sent  to  an  asylum,  and  there  lived  for  thirty-eight 

years  jt  jt 

Religiously,  once  a  month,  her  husband  went  to  visit  her, 

but  her  brain  was  melted  and  her  dull,  dead  eyes  gave  no 

sign.  She  was  only  a  derelict,  waiting  for  death. 


97 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 


If  I  knew  I  were  to  die  tomorrow,  I  would  plant  a  tree  today. 
HE  first  six  years  that  Girard  was 


in  Philadelphia  he  made  little  head- 
way. But  he  did  not  lose  courage. 
He  knew  that  the  war  must  end 
sometime,  and  that  when  it  did, 
there  would  be  a  great  revival  of 
business  J>  ,^ 

When  others  were  beaten  out  and 
ready  to  give  up,  and  prices  were 
down,  he  bought.  Merchant  ships 
were  practically  useless,  and  so 
were  for  sale.  He  bought  one  brand- 
new  boat  and  named  it  "The  Water  Witch,"  for  this  was 
the  name  he  had  for  Pollie  Lumm  when  she  used  to  come 
with  her  jug  to  his  pump. 

As  soon  as  the  war  closed  and  peace  was  declared,  Girard 
loaded  his  two  ships  with  grain  and  cotton  and  dis- 
patched them  to  Bordeaux. 

They  were  back  in  five  months,  having  sold  their  cargoes, 
bringing  silks,  wines  and  tea.  These  were  at  once  sold  at 
a  profit  of  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
The  ships  were  quickly  loaded  again.  The  captains  were 
ordered  to  go  to  Bordeaux,  sell  their  cargoes  and  load  with 
fruit  and  wine  for  St.  Petersburg.  There  they  were  to  sell 
their  cargoes  and  buy  hemp  and  iron,  and  sail  for  Amsterdam. 
At  Amsterdam  they  were  to  buy  dry-goods  and  sail  for  Cal- 
cutta. There  they  were  to  sell  out  and  with  the  proceeds  buy 
silks,  teas,  and  coffees  and  make  for  America. 

98 , 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

These  trips  took  a  year  to  make,  but  proved  immensely 
profitable  j^  J- 

Girard  now  bought  more  ships,  and  named,  very  properly, 
the  first  one  "Voltaire,"  and  the  next  "Rousseau.** 
By  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Ninety-five,  he  owned  twenty- 
two  ships  and  was  worth  over  a  million  dollars.  In  fact  he 
was  the  first  man  in  America  to  have  a  million  dollars  in 
paying  property  at  his  disposal. 

After  he  was  thirty  he  was  called  "Old  Girard.'*  He  centered 
on  business  and  his  life  was  as  regular  as  a  town  clock.  He 
lived  over  his  warehouse  on  Water  Street  and  opened  the 
doors  in  the  morning  himself.  He  was  regarded  as  cold  and 
selfish. 

He  talked  little,  but  he  had  a  way  of  listening  and  making 
calculations  while  others  were  arguing  jt  Suddenly,  he 
would  reach  a  conclusion  and  make  his  decision.  When 
this  was  done  that  was  all  there  was  about  it.  The  folks  with 
whom  he  traded  grew  to  respect  his  judgment  and  knew 
better  than  to  rob  him  of  his  time  by  haggling.  His  business 
judgment  was  remarkably  good,  but  not  unerring.  Yet  he 
never  cried  over  lacteal  fluid  on  the  ground.  When  one  of 
his  captains  came  in  and  reported  a  loss  of  ten  thousand 
dollars  through  having  been  robbed  by  pirates,  Girard  made 
him  a  present  of  a  hundred,  so  to  get  his  nerve  back  and  told 
him  he  should  be  thankful  that  he  got  off  with  his  life. 
He  loaded  the  ship  up  again,  and  in  a  year  the  man  came  back 
with  a  cargo  that  netted  twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  Girard 
gave  him  a  silver  watch  worth  twenty  dollars  and  chided  him 
for  having  been  gone  so  long. 

99 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

Then  Girard  made  a  pot  of  tea  for  both,  on  the  little  stove 
in  the  office  back  of  his  bank,  for  the  millionaire  always 
prided  himself  on  being  a  cook. 

His  brother,  Jean,  had  now  come  to  join  him.  Jean  was 
also  a  ship-captain.  Stephen  bought  a  third  ship  and  called 
it  "The  Two  Brothers,"  in  loving  token  of  the  ownership. 
^  When  his  brother  Jean  proved  to  be  a  bad  business  man, 
although  a  good  sailor,  Stephen  presented  him  his  own  half- 
interest  in  the  ship,  and  told  him  to  go  off  and  make  his 
fortune  alone.  Jean  sailed  away,  mortgaged  his  boat  to  get 
capital  to  trade  upon,  lost  money  and  eventually  lost  the 
boat.  When  he  wanted  to  come  back  and  work  for  his  brother, 
Stephen  sent  him  a  check,  but  declined  to  take  him  back. 
"The  way  to  help  your  poor  relatives  is  to  remit  them.  When 
you  go  partners  with  them  everybody  loses. " 
Girard  was  a  man  of  courage — moral,  financial  and  physical. 
When  his  ship,  the  "Montesquiae,"  arrived  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Delaware  on  March  Twenty-sixth,  Eighteen  Hundred 
and  Thirteen,  she  was  headed  off  and  captured  by  an  English 
gunboat.  Word  was  sent  to  Girard  that  he  could  have  his  boat 
by  bringing  an  inventory  of  the  craft  and  cargo  and  paying 
over  British  gold  to  the  amount.  He  went  down  the  bay  in  a 
small  boat,  met  the  enemy  on  a  frank  business  basis,  paid 
over  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  dollars  in  English 
guineas  and  came  sailing  back  to  his  own  calm  satisfaction, 
even  if  to  the  embarrassment  of  the  crew.  The  boat  was 
loaded  with  tea  and  Girard  was  essentially  a  tea  merchant. 
He  knew  his  market  and  sold  the  "Montesquiae's"  cargo 
for  just  five  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

100 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

When  yellow  fever  came  like  a  blight  to  the  city,  and  the  grass 
grew  in  the  streets,  Girard  gave  bountifully  to  relieve  the  dis- 
tress of  the  people.  But  a  panic  of  fear  was  upon  them.  They 
forgot  how  to  live  and  began  to  pray.  Preachers  proclaimed 
the  day  of  judgment  was  at  hand.  Whole  families  died,  and 
left  no  one  to  look  after  their  affairs. 
Every  night  wagons  went  through  the  street  and  the  hoarse 
cry  was  heard,  "Bring  out  your  dead — Bring  out  your  dead ! " 
^  Then  the  old  millionaire  showed  the  heroic  side  of  his  nature. 
He  organized  a  hospital  at  Bush  Hill,  and  took  personal  charge 
of  it.  Every  office  that  could  be  done  for  the  sick  and  dying 
he  did.  With  his  own  carriage  he  would  go  to  houses,  and 
lifting  the  stricken  ones  in  his  arms,  carry  them  out  and 
transport  them  to  a  place  where  they  could  have  attention. 
^  As  the  spirits  of  others  sank,  his  soared.  To  the  men  who 
walked  in  the  middle  of  the  street  with  a  sponge  to  their 
noses,  he  would  call  in  banter.  He  laughed,  danced  and  sang 
at  the  pesthouse,  things  he  was  never  known  to  do  before. 
"Fear  is  the  only  devil,"  he  wrote  on  a  big  board  and  put 
it  up  on  Chestnut  Street.  He  would  often  call  at  fifty  houses 
a  day,  carrying  food  and  medicine,  but  best  of  all,  good  cheer. 
"If  death  catches  me,  he  *11  find  me  busy,"  he  used  to  say. 
^  He  showed  the  same  courage  when  the  financial  panic 
was  on  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ten.  At  this  time  every  one 
was  hoarding  and  business  was  paralyzed.  Girard  had  one 
million  dollars  to  his  credit  with  Baring  Brothers  in  London. 
He  drew  out  the  whole  smn  and  invested  it  in  shares  of  the 
United  States  Bank.  This  bold  move  inspired  confidence  and 
broke  the  back  of  the  panic. 

101 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Eleven,  when  the  charter  of  the 

United  States   Bank   had  expired,   and  Congress  foolishly 

declined  to  renew  it,  Girard  bought  the  whole  outfit-— or  all 

there  was  left  of  it — and  established  "The  Bank  of  Stephen 

Girard, "  with  a  capital  of  one  million,  two  hundred  thousand 

dollars  ^  J* 

When  near  the  close  of  the  war  the  Government  was  trying 

to  float  a  loan  of  five  million  dollars,  only  twentj^  thousand 

was  taken.  "The  Colonies  are  going  back  to  the  Mother 

Country, "  the  croakers  said.  If  so  all  public  debts  would  be 

repudiated. 

Girard  stepped  forward  and  took  the  entire  loan,  although 

it  was  really  more  than  his  entire  fortune. 

The  effect  was  magical — if  Old  Girard  was  not  afraid,  the 

people  were  not,  and  the  money  began  to  come  out  of  the 

stockings  and  ginger-jars. 

Girard  believed  in  America  and  in  her  future.  "I  want  to 

live  so  as  to  see  the  United  States  supreme  in  liberty,  justice 

and  education,'*  he  used  to  say. 

He  loved  pets  and  children,  and  if  he  was  cold  it  was  only  to 

grown-ups  J>  J- 

On  each  of  his  ships  he  placed  a  big  Newfoundland  dog — 

"To  keep  the  sailors  company, "  he  said.  The  wise  ones  said  it 

was  because  a  dog  was  cheaper  than  a  watchman.  An)rway, 

he  loved  dogs,  and  in  his  yellow  gig,  or  under  it,  was  always 

a  big,  shaggy  dog.  He  drove  a  slow-going,  big,  fat  horse  and 

used  to  say  that  if  times  got  hard  he  at  least  had  a  horse  that 

could  plow.  During  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  he  used 

to  make  daily  trips  to  his  farm,  where  Girard  College  now 

102 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 


standS)  and  work  there  like  a  laborer  with  his  trees  and 
flowers.  If  he  did  not  love  Venus,  he  certainly  did  Ceres 
and  Pomona.  **If  I  knew  I  should  die  tomorrow,  I  should 
plant  a  tree  today, "  he  once  wrote. 


Wealth,  like  education,  is  onl^  valuable  to  those  who  know 
how  to  use  it. 


y  his  will,  Girard  left  many  bene- 
factions for  the  betterment  of 
humanity.  His  bequests  to  the 
City  of  Philadelphia  and  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania  were  these :  To  the 
Philadelphia  Hospital,  $30,000 ;  to 
the  Pennsylvania  Institute  for  the 
Deaf,  $20,000 ;  to  the  Philadelphia 
Orphan  Asylum,  $10,000;  to  the 
Philadelphia  Public  Schools,  $10,- 
000;  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia, 
for  the  distribution  of  fuel  among 
the  poor,  $10,000 ;  to  the  Masonic  Loan  Association,  $20,000 ; 
to  the  City  of  Philadelphia  for  the  improvement  of  its  streets 
and  public  squares,  $500,000;  to  the  Philadelphia  Public 
Library,  $40,000 ;  for  the  improvement  of  canals  in  the  state 
of  Pennsylvania,  $300,000;  and  greatest  of  all,  $2,000,000 
for  the  founding  of  Girard  College.  Beside  this  was  a  residue 

103 


STEPHENGIRARD 

of  the  estate  which  went  also  to  Girard  College,  the  total 
value  of  which  endowment  has  increased  until  it  is  now  over 
sixteen  million  dollars. 

At  the  time  of  the  death  of  Girard  his  bequests  to  public 
institutions  had  never  been  equaled  by  individual  philan- 
thropies in  the  history  of  the  world. 

And  since  then,  I  believe,  only  two  men  have  given  as  much 
for  the  cause  of  education.  ^  However,  it  so  happened  that 
no  public  statue  or  material  acknowledgment  of  Girard*s 
great  gifts  to  Philadelphia  and  the  State  of  Pennsylvania 
were  made — except  at  his  own  expense — until  the  year 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ninety-seven,  when  a  bronze  statue 
of  this  great  business  man  and  philanthropist  was  erected 
on  the  north  plaza  of  the  City  Hall.  This  statue  has  no  special 
setting  and  is  merely  one  of  a  dozen  decorative  objects  that 
surround  the  square. 

That  particular  clause  in  Girard's  will  which  provided  that 
no  clergyman,  preacher  or  priest  should  ever  be  allowed  to 
act  as  trustee  for  the  school,  or  ever  be  allowed  to  enter 
the  school,  is  still  outwardly  respected,  at  least. 
The  gatekeeper  challenges  you  thus:  "Are  you  a  clergy- 
man?" And  those  who  fail  to  flatly  say,  "No,"  are  not 
allowed  to  enter. 

Horace  Greeley  once  approached  the  gate  at  Girard  College 
wearing  his  usual  little  white  necktie,  his  spectacles  and  his 
beatific,  innocent  smile. 
"You  can't  enter,"  said  the  grim  St.  Peter. 
"Why  not?"  was  the  astonished  reply. 
"You  are  a  clergyman!" 
T04, 


STEPHEN         GIRARD 

"The  hell  I  am!"  said  Horace.  ^**Excuse  me — walk  right 
in,"  said  St.  Peter. 

The  heirs  tried  to  break  the  will,  basing  their  argument 
on  that  item  concerning  clergymen. 

The  Supreme  Court  upheld  the  will,  finding  nothing  derog- 
atory in  it  to  the  Christian  religion  or  public  policy. 
Girard  did  not  say,  ** Christian  Clergymen" — he  was  opposed 
to  all  formal  religions.  ^  Girard  had  very  positive  ideas  on 
the  subject  of  education  and  he  was  the  first  man  in  America 
to  put  manual  training  to  a  practical  test  as  a  part  of  the 
school  curriculum.  ^  He  was  certainly  far  in  advance  of  his 
time  in  his  efforts  to  bring  about  hiunan  eflSciency,  instead 
of  an  education  for  bric-a-brac. 

At  Girard  College  there  are  now  constantly  over  two  thou- 
sand boys,  who  have  a  home  and  school  advantages.  There 
are  certain  grave  dangers  about  institutional  homes  for 
children  in  that  there  is  a  strong  tendency  to  kill  individu- 
ality. But  certain  it  is  that  Girard  College  has  ever  labored, 
and  in  a  great  degree  succeeded,  in  minimizing  this  tendency. 
It  is  the  proud  boast  that  any  boy  who  graduates  from 
Girard  is  able  to  take  care  of  himself — he  can  do  things  that 
the  world  wants  done  and  is  willing  to  pay  for. 
The  boys  graduate  at  eighteen,  which  is  the  age  that  most 
students  who  go  to  universities,  enter.  But  Girard  boys, 
almost  without  exception,  go  right  into  practical  business, 
and  Philadelphia  merchants  are  not  slow  to  hire  them. 
Girard  College  has  a  long  honor  roll  of  noble  men  who  have 
succeeded  beyond  the  average,  helping  themselves  by  adding 
to  the  wealth  and  happiness  of  the  world. 

105 


STEPHEN        GIRARD 

And  it  is  good  to  know  that  Girard  College  is  managed  by 
men  who  are  in  the  line  of  progress  in  pedagogy.  Girard 
is  a  better  school  now  than  it  has  ever  been,  and  I  am  sure 
that  there  will  be  still  a  more  excellent  Girard.  Great  was  the 
mariner  and  merchant  Who  made  these  things  possible! 


io6  , 


r 


for    what 
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[LBERT  HUBBARD  is  at  once  the  despair 
.  .  and  the  inspiration  of  every  writer  and 
public  speaker  in  America  today.  No  man 
of  this  age  is  so  great  at  so  many  angles. 
He  will  be  canonized  and  take  his  honored  place 
on  the  calendar  of  the  Saints  of  sanity,  sweetness 
and  human  freedom.  ^  Those  who  raise  the  foolish 
question,  "Is  Hubbard  sincere?"  write  themselves 
down  as  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  nature  and  consequently 
incompetent  to  judge.  ^  No  man  can  accomplish  what 
this  man  has  done  and  not  be  sincere,  because  only 
in  sincerity  and  whole-heartedness  could  he  have  the 
co-operation  of  the  forces  of  nature,  which  would 
enable  him  to  do  his  work.  It  would  not  be  possible 
for  any  man  to  do  the  marvelous  things  that  Elbert 
Hubbard  has  done  and  is  doing  every  day  unless  he 
did  work  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  ibeing.  In  his 
sincerity  lies  his  strength.  The  forces  of  Nature  can- 
not be  called  out  except  by  him  who  comes  with  pure 
heart  and  in  terrible  earnestness.  ^I  advise  you  to 
read  THE  FRA.  I  read  it  religiously  as  I  do  all  of  the 
"good  stuflF"  and  I  consider  it  quite  the  finest  bit  of 
mental  meat  that  ever  came  earth  ways. 

—BRUCE  T.   CALVERT 


Q$€l 


ART    BOOKS! 

/^■■i^HE  following  books  are  rare  and  peculiar  in 
^1  binding,  distinctly  Roycrof tie — nothing  to  be 
^■■^  had  at  the  book-stores  like  them  Jt>  Flexible 

velvet  calf,  finished  with  turned  edge  jt   ^   j(    ^ 

The  Last  Ride,  Browning  -  -  -        $    5.00 

Walt  Whitman,  Hubbard  and  Stevenson 

Will  o'  the  Mill,  Stevenson 

Full  Leather,  Modeled:  a 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  Irving 

Respectability,  Hubbard 

A  Dog  of  Flanders,  Ouida    - 

Law  of  Love,  Reedy 

Nature,  Emerson        _  _  _ 

Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  Wilde 

Love,  Life  and  Work,  Elbert  Hubbard 


5.00 

5.00 

Revival  of  Medieval  Binding 

$  10.00 
10.00 
10.00 
10.00 
10.00 
10.00 
10.00 
Thomas  Jefferson,  Lentz  and  Hubbard  -  -  10.00 

Justinian  and  Theodora,  Alice  and  Elbert  Hubbard      10.00 
The  Man  of  Sorrows,  Hubbard         -  $10.00  and  25.00 

Full  Levant,  Hand-Tooled  by  Kinder 
Thoreau*s  Friendship,  Tall  copy  on  genuine  Vellum, 

forty  free-hand  drawings  -  -  $250.00 

Thoreau's  Friendship — Japan  Vellum,  Hlumined  60.00 

Contemplations,  Hubbard  _  _  _ 

Song  of  Myself,  Whitman 
Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam      -  -  - 

Self-Reliance,  Emerson  _  _  _ 

The  Man  of  Sorrows,  Hubbard   -  -  - 

Last  Ride,  Browning — Classic  Vellum,  specially 
Illumined  _  _  _  _ 

Law  of  Love,  Beedy  _  _  _ 

The  Roycrofters,   East   Aurora,   New   York 


w  W 


HEN 


rue 


Genius  Appears 
in  the  World, 
You     May 


Know  Him  by  This  Sign, 
That  the  Dunces  are  all  in 
Confederacy   Against   Him 


IV 


T 


E  Sometimes 
Meet  an  Orig- 
inal Gentle- 
man, Who,  if 


Manners  had  not  Existed, 
Would  Have  Invented 
Them — E  me  r  s  o  n 


Vol.  24 


APRIL,  MCMIX 


No.  4 


wi 


t^QHE  ■  IHTOZZg 


^::^'==vT?iK«">^'^:^ 


UOOK-UY-THR 


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EaszazEMH 


EEEZSaZHTSl 


Sg  SjgMt-w-vrnTwSE 


EBffl^^^^^ia 


SJZ^K 


^iik?n=ig»J!;^  ;»;a»lg<=<iifearti  A-agil^i^?RTg 


EN  ARE 
SELDOM 
IF  EVER 
MORE 
INNOCENTLY 
EMPLOYED  THAN 
WHEN  THEY 
ARE  HONESTLY 
MAKING   MONEY 


•^  O  H  N  3 


N 


*~7J!«C~w 


Eflter<yi  at  the  poatofflce  at  East  Aurora.  New  fork,  for  transmission  as  second-claas  matter 
r  vpyriirht,  \@m,  by  Elbert  Hubbefd,  EditorAWdpHWisher 


without  THE  FRA—not 
him,  but  for  what  THE 
The  best  printed  and  most  artistic  magazine 


THE  FRA  is  the  bibliozinc 
that  is  never  thrown  away. 
The  paper  upon  which  THE 
FRA  is  printed  costs  four 
times  as  much  as  that  which 
is  used  in  "^Mumsley's"  and 
other  stock  magazines.  And 
as  for  the  text,  Elbert  Hubbard 
endeavors  to  have  it  as  mu6h 
better  than  "the  six  best 
sellers"  as  the  paper  he  uses 
is  better  than  the  popular 
periodical  pishmince.  Law- 
yers, writers,  orators,  business 
captains,  preachers,  farmers- 
all  who  prize  phosphorus 
plus,  take  THE  FRA,  be- 
cause it  supplies  the  needed 
Mental  Martini.  The  question 
is,  can  a  thinker  afford  to  do 
for  what  THE  FRA  may  tell 
FRA  will  make  him  think  ? 
in  America. 


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A  Message  to  Garcia 

was  first  printed  in  The  Philistine  of  March,  1899.  The 
merit  of  the  article  was  instantly  recognized,  and  the 
edition  disappeared  ^  The  article  was  then  reprinted  by 
George  H.  Daniels  of  the  New  York  Central  Lines,  and  over 
three  million  copies  were  distributed.  It  was  also  reprinted 
by  the  Westinghouse  Company  in  England.  In  France, 
the  Bon  Marche  of  Paris  distributed  a  million  copies. 
Prince  Hilakoff,  Director  of  Railways  in  Russia,  translated 
the  essay  into  Russian  and  presented  a  copy  to  every  officer 
in  the  Russian  Army  ^  The  Mikado  of  Japan,  not  to  be 
outdone,  had  the  ** Message"  printed  in  Japanese,  and  a 
copy  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  every  Japanese  soldier. 
Cf  In  all,  the  "Message"  has  been  translated  into  eleven 
languages,  and  reprinted  over  twenty-five  million  times.  It 
is  believed  that  it  has  a  wider  circulation  than  any  other 
article  ever  written  by  an  American,  and  a  larger  circula- 
tion in  the  same  space  of  time  than  any  other  article  ever 
produced  in  all  the  history  of  literature  ^  We  have  a 

Few  Volumes  of  the  *  'Message' ' 

in  English,  followed  by  the  ** Message"  translated  into 
Japanese,  which  in  turn  is  succeeded  by  the  "Message" 
retranslated  into  English  ^  These  books  are  bound  in 
limp  leather  in  Japanese  style,  to  be  in  keeping  with 
the  text       •        .        .        Price  One  Dollar  by  Mail 

We  also  have  the  Message  in  paper  covers,  price  10c  a  copy 

THE       R  O  Y  C  R  O  F  T  E  R  S 

EAST  AUBOBA.  EBIE  COUNTY,  NEW  YOBK 


Health  and  Wealth 

A  Book  by  Elbert  Hubbard  of  East  Aurora,  New  York 

HEREIN  is  pleasantly  told  how 
to  be  happy — but  not  too  happy 
— and  yet  be  rich;  containing 
thoughts,  always  sincere  and 
sometimes  serious,  concerning 
the  best  methods  of  preventing  one  from 
becoming  a  burden  to  himself,  a  weariness 
to  his  friends,  a  trial  to  his  neighbors  and  a 
reflection  on  his  Maker.  This  volume  tells  of 
Roycroftism.  ^Roycroftism  is  here,  and  it  is 
slowly  but  surely  increasing  in  influence. 
^  Roycroftism  does  not  claim  to  be  a  religion 
— it  is  a  system  of  life.  This  system,  plan, 
method  or  habit,  does  not  seek  to  separate 
religion  from  work,  literature  from  life,  or  art 
from  play,  any  more  than  it  would  separate 
love  from  sociology,  or  ethics  from  finance. 

The  price  of  Health  and  Wealth  is  Two  Dollars,  bound 
either  in  limp  leather  or  in  boeurds,  leather  back. 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  New  York 


So  here  then  is  a  Hand-Clasp  across  the  fertile  fields  of 
America— NORTH— EAST— SOUTH— WEST  from 

The  Wanamaker  Stores 

PHILADELPHIA        PARIS  NEW  YORK 

The   Great    Stores   of   the    World 

They  invite  you  to  be  their  guests  in  their  great  business  homes  in  New  York 
and  Philadelphia,  whenever  you  visit  these  cities.  The  \^anamaker  salesmen 
and  salesgirls  constitute  a  big,  happy  family,  and  they  '11  greet  you  as  a  friend 
when  you  pay  them  a  visit.  ^  These  folks  invite  you  to  inspect  the  largest 
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JOHN     WANAMAKER 

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Everybody  who  is   anybody   trades   with^WANAMAKER 


Sg 


lo/t^nm 


TO  THE  HOME^  OH 


WW 


BQOK-BY-THR 


Sl^En^T-  FIl/ROPm^g  S[g 


IT  takes  a  great  deal  of  boldness,  mixed  with  a  vast  deal  of  caution^ 
to  acquire  a  great  fortune ;  and  then  it  takes  ten  times  as  much 
wit  to  keep  it  after  you  have  got  it,  as  it  took  to  make  it. 

— Mayer  A.  Rothschild 


MAYER      A.      ROTHSCHILD 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 

HAT  the  Jews  are  a  joyous  people 
and  find  much  sweet  solace  in 
their  sorrowful  religion  is  proven 
by  one  fact  too  obvious  to  be  over- 
looked— they  reproduce. 
Children  are  born  of  love  and  joy. 
The  sorrows  of  Jewry  are  more 
apparent  than  real.  After  every 
Black  Fast,  when  the  congrega- 
tions used  to  sit  shoeless  on  the 
stone  floors  of  the  synagogues, 
weeping  and  wailing  on  account 
of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  the  youngsters,  and  the 
grown-ups  as  well,  were  counting  the  hours  before  the  Feast 
of  Pentecost  would  begin.  ^The  sorrow  over  the  loss  of 
things  destroyed  a  thousand  years  or  so  ago,  is  reduced  by  the 
lapse  of  years  to  rather  a  pleasant  emotional  exercise. 
Fasts  were  followed  by  feasts,  also  pro  and  con,  as  Mrs. 
Malaprop  would  say,  so  in  the  home  of  an  orthodox  Jewish 
family  there  was  always  something  doing.  Fasts,  feasts, 
flowers,  sweetmeats,  lights,  candles,  little  journeys,  visits, 
calls,  dances,  prayers,  responses,  wails,  cries  of  exultation, 
shouts  of  triumph — "Rejoicing  of  the  Law," — these  pre- 
vented monotony,  stagnation  and  introspection. 
And  these  are  the  things  which  have  pressed  their  influences 
upon  the  Jew  until  the  fume  and  reek  of  the  Ghetto,  the 
bubble  and  squeak  of  the  rabble,  and  the  babble  of  bazaars 
are  more  acceptable  to  him  than  the  breeze  blowing  across 
silent  mesa  and  prairie,  or  the  low,  moaning  lullaby  of  lonely 
pine  forests.  ^  The  Jew  is  no  hermit — if  anything  is  going 
on,  he  is  literally  and  poetically  in  it.  ^  The  sense  of  sepa- 

107 


MAYER  A.  ration  is  hell.  If  continued  it  becomes  insanity.  The  sense 
ROTHSCHILD  of  separation  is  a-  thing  that  seldom  presses  upon  the  Jew, 
and  this  is  why  insanity  passes  him  by  and  seeks  a  Christian 
as  a  victim.  The  Jew  has  an  animating  purpose  that  is  a 
saving  salt,  even  if  this  purpose  is  not  always  an  ideal  one. 
His  family,  friends,  clan,  tribe,  are  close  about  him. 
Zangwill,  himself  a  child  of  the  Ghetto,  comes  to  the  rescue 
of  the  despised  and  misunderstood  Christian,  and  expresses 
a  doubt  as  to  whether  the  Ghetto  was  not  devised  by  Jews 
in  order  to  keep  Christians  at  a  safe  and  discreet  distance. 
^  For  certain  it  is  that  the  wall  which  shut  the  Jews  in,  shut 
the  Christians  out.  The  contempt  of  the  Christian  for  the 
Jew  is  fully  reciprocated.  One-sided  hate  does  not  endure 
any  more  than  does  a  one-sided  love. 

The  first  Ghetto  was  at  Venice.  It  came  into  being  during 
the  Italian  Renaissance,  say  about  Fourteen  Hundred  and 
Fifty.  The  Jews  had  settled  in  one  corner  of  the  City,  as  they 
always  have  done,  and  are  still  prone  to  do.  They  had  their 
own  shops,  stores,  bazaars,  booths,  schools  and  synagogues. 
There  they  were  packed,  busied  with  their  own  affairs, 
jostling,  quibbling,  arguing,  praying,  taking  no  interest  in 
the  social  life  outside.  Jehovah  lead  them  out  of  captivity 
in  order  that  He  might  make  them  slaves  to  Himself.  He 
surely  was  a  jealous  God!  flOf  course,  they  traded  with 
Christians,  bought,  sold,  ran,  walked  with  them,  but  did  not 
dine  with  Christians  nor  pray  with  them.  There  were  Jewish 
architects,  painters,  printers,  lawyers,  doctors,  bankers,  and 
many  of  the  richest  and  most  practical  men  in  Venice  were 
Jews.  ^They  made  money  out  of  the  Christians,  and  no 
doubt  helped  Christians  to  make  money,  for,  as  I  said,  things 
not  founded  on  reciprocity  do  not  last  long. 
One  fact  that  looks  like  corroborating  proof  of  Zangwill's 
pleasantry,  is  that  upon  one  of  the  Ghetto  gates  was  a  marble 
zo8 


slab,  warning  all  Jews  that  if  any  of  them  turned  Christian  MAYER  A. 
he  would  never  be  allowed  again  to  live  in  the  Ghetto,  nor  ROTHSCHILD 
would  he  be  saluted  or  spoken  to  if  he  returned,  nor  so  much 
as  be  given  a  cup  of  water,  but  that  the  cord,  scourge,  gallows, 
prison  and  pillory  should  be  his  portion.  Qlt  was  a  curse 
somewhat  like  that  cheerful  one  visited  upon  Spinoza,  the 
lens-maker,  when  he  forsook  the  synagogue  and  took  up  his 
home  with  the  Mennonites.  ^  Children  born  and  brought  up 
in  the  Ghetto  always  felt  a  certain  pity  for  those  who  were 
obliged  to  live  beyond  the  gates,  in  the  great,  selfish,  grasping, 
wicked  world.  Those  inside  the  Ghetto  were  the  Chosen  People 
of  God;  those  outside  were  the  Children  of  the  Devil. 
No  matter  who  built  the  wall,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  Government 
of  Venice,  which  was  Christian  and  under  the  immediate 
jurisdiction  of  the  Church,  kept  guards  at  the  gates  and 
allowed  no  Jew  to  leave  after  a  certain  early  hour  of  the 
evening,  nor  on  Sundays  or  holidays,  or  when  the  Emperor 
visited  the  city.  The  only  exception  to  this  was  on  Holy 
Cross  Day,  which  occurred  once  a  year.  On  this  day  all  adult 
Jews  were  ordered  out  and  marched  by  the  soldiers  to  some 
Christian  Church,  where  they  were  compelled  to  listen  to 
the  service  and  repeat  the  Apostles'  Creed.  Robert  Browning 
says  that  they  were  rounded  up  all  right,  but  when  it  came 
to  saying  the  Creed  they  twiddled  their  thumbs  and  said  Ben 
Ezra's  Prayer.  It  is  also  quite  probable  that  they  crossed  their 
fingers,  for  the  Jews  are  a  stubborn  sort,  given  to  contumacy 
and  contravention.  ^  On  all  other  days,  any  Jew  who  went 
out  into  the  city  had  to  wear  a  big  yellow  O  on  his  breast, 
and  a  yellow  hat  on  his  head.  The  Jewish  women  wore  the 
0  and  also  a  veil  across  which  were  yellow  stripes. 
These  chromatic  signs  were  changed  a  few  times  in  the 
course  of  the  three  hundred  years  that  the  Ghetto  existed, 
and  so  were  the  hours  in  which  the  Jews  were  allowed  to 

log 


MAYER  A.  ^Qjjjg  g^jj^  gQ^  Ij^j^  g^g  o'clock  in  the  evening  and  seven  in 
ROTHSCHILD  ^|jg  morning  were  the  regular  closing  and  opening  times. 
The  watchmen  at  the  gates  and  the  guards  who  rowed  round 
and  round  in  their  barcas  were  paid  out  of  a  special  tax  col- 
lected from  the  Jews.  It  was  argued  that  it  was  all  a  sort  of 
beneficent  police  protection,  devised  by  kindly  persons  who 
loved  their  enemies,  and  did  good  to  those  who  despitefuUy 
used  them.  Q  The  man  who  cannot  make  a  good  argument 
for  the  Ghetto  lacks  imagination.  ^  We  have  all  seen  that 
particular  type  of  mother  who  calls  out  of  the  window, 
** Johnnie,  come  in  here  at  once,  do  you  hear?" 
Johnnie  does  n't  hear,  so  the  call  is  repeated  in  a  tone  a 
trifle  more  shrill.  This  time  Johnnie  hears  and  shouts  back, 
"I  won't!" 

And  the  answer  is,  **Well,  stay  out  there,  then!" 
Perhaps  it  was  something  like  this  with  the  Jews  in  the 
Ghetto.  They  chose  to  congregate  in  this  way,  and  the 
salutation  finally  was,  "Stay  there,  then!" 
Gibbon,  who  was  a  deist  or  monotheist  and  really  liked  the 
Jews,  intimates  that  it  was  lucky  for  the  Christians  that 
Constantine  did  n't  embrace  Judaism  instead  of  Christianity, 
for  if  he  had,  the  Jews  would  have  treated  the  Christians 
exactly  as  the  Christians  have  since  treated  the  Jews.  Of 
course,  nobody  claims  that  Christianity  is  the  religion  of 
Christ — it  is  the  religious  rule  of  pagan  Rome,  with  the 
Jewish  Christ  as  a  convenient  label.  Just  why  Christians 
should  worship  a  Jew,  and  pray  to  a  Jewess,  and  yet  despise 
Jews,  is  a  matter  so  subtle  that  it  has  never  been  explained. 
Gibbon  in  this  connection  says  at  least  one  irrefutable  thing, 
and  that  is,  that  the  Jewish  people  are  men  and  women. 
Christians  are  men  and  women,  also.  All  are  human  beings, 
and  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  nor  the 
battle  tQ  the  strong,  but  time  and  chance  happeneth  to  them 
no 


all.  fl  I  am  not  sure  that  Gibbon  was  right  when  he  says  that  MAYER  A. 
the  Christians  were  lucky  in  that  Constantine  did  not  turn  ROTHSCHILD 
Jew.  To  be  persecuted  is  not  wholly  a  calamity,  but  to  per- 
secute is  to  do  that  for  which  Nature  affords  no  compensation. 
The  persecutor  dies,  but  the  persecuted  lives  on  forever. 
The  struggle  for  existence  which  the  Jew  has  had  to  make 
is  the  thing  that  has  differentiated  him  and  made  him  strong. 
Those  first  Christians — Primitive  Christians — who  lived  from 
the  time  of  Paul  to  that  of  Constantine,  were  a  simple,  direct, 
sincere  and  honest  people — opinionated  no  doubt,  and  obsti- 
nately dogmatic,  but  with  virtues  that  can  never  be  omitted 
nor  waived.  They  were  economical,  industrious  and  filled 
with  the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  and  they  possessed  a  fine  pride 
concerning  their  humility,  as  most  ascetics  do.  Humility  is 
a  form  of  energy.  It  is  simply  going  after  the  thing  by  another 
route,  and  deceiving  yourself  as  to  the  motive. 
The  Primitive  Christians  had  every  characteristic  that  dis- 
tinguished the  Jew  of  the  Middle  Ages — those  characteristics 
which  invite  persecution  and  wax  strong  under  it. 
Poverty  and  persecution  seem  necessary  factors  in  fixing 
upon  a  people  a  distinctive  and  peculiar  religion.  Persecution 
and  poverty  have  no  power  to  stamp  out  a  religion — all  they 
do  is  to  stain  it  deeper  into  the  hearts  of  its  votaries.  Centuries 
of  starvation  and  repression  deepened  the  religious  impulses 
of  the  Irish,  and  it  has  ever  been  the  same  with  the  Jews. 
^  If  the  Jew  is  criticized  in  America,  it  is  on  account  of  that 
buttinski  bumptiousness  upon  which  he  has  no  monopoly, 
but  which  goes  with  the  newly  made  rich  of  any  nationality 
who  have  little  to  recommend  them  beyond  the  walletoski. 
fl  There  are  no  poor  Jews  natives  of  America,  and  it  is  worth 
while  noting  that  our  richest  citizens  are  not  Jews,  either. 
American-born  Jews  have  enough.  The  poverty-stricken  Jews 
in  this  country  come  from  Russia,  Bulgaria  and  Roumania ; 

III 


MAYER  A.  and  their  children  will  have  money  to  loan,  if  not  to  incin- 
ROTHSCHILD  erate,  because  they  possess  the  virtues  that  beckon  all  good 
things  in  their  direction.  ^  America  is  the  true  Judaic  Zion. 
Here  there  are  nearly  two  million  Jews,  and  their  religion 
is  fast  taking  the  form  of  a  healthful  Roycroftism. 
The  downfall  of  Primitive  Christianity  dates  from  the  day 
Constantine  embraced  it,  and  thereby  made  it  popular  J^ 
Prosperity  is  a  form  of  disintegration — a  ripening  of  the 
fruit.  Things  succeed  only  that  they  may  wither.  The  business 
of  every  great  religion  is  to  die,  and  thus  fertilize  others. 
The  Jew  has  survived  every  foe  save  success.  Civilization 
is  now  adopting  him,  and  Liberal  Judaism  is  fast  becoming 
a  Universal  Religion,  taught  in  fact,  if  not  in  name,  by 
priests,  preachers  and  muftis  of  all  denominations  ^  The 
end  of  the  Jew  is  near — he  has  ceased  to  be  peculiar. 


OLFGANG  GOETHE  was  born  in 
the  city  of  Frankfort  in  Seventeen 
Hundred  and  Forty-nine.  Goethe 
gives  us  a  very  vivid  description  of 
Frankfort  as  he  remembered  it  in 

W-^IK-  his  childhood  days.  He  describes  it 
^p^  as  a  town  within  a  town,  fortress 
within  fortress.  Then  he  tells  us  of 
a  walled  inclosure  in  this  walled 
city,  which  was  to  him  a  very 
terrible  place — it  was  the  Ghetto, 
or  Jews'  Quarter.  Through  it  ran 
the  Judengasse,  or  street  of  the  Jews.  It  was  a  place  packed 
with  human  beings — houses,  hallways,  alleys,  sidewalks  and 

112 


porches  swarming  with  children.  Goethe  tells  how  he  at  MAYER  A. 
times  would  peep  through  the  iron  gates  of  the  Ghetto,  but  ROTHSCHILD 
as  a  child  he  never  ventured  in.  The  children  told  each  other 
how  human  sacrifices  were  offered  in  the  synagogues,  and 
as  proof,  pictures  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  were  brought  forth, 
— that  proved  the  point  J^  There  were  plenty  of  men  in 
the  Ghetto  who  looked  exactly  like  Abraham — goodness 
gracious! 

In  this  Ghetto  at  Frankfort  was  bom  in  Seventeen  Hundred 
and  Forty-three,  Mayer  Anselm,  afterward  Mayer  Anselm 
Rothschild.  When  Goethe  took  his  peep  into  the  Ghetto, 
this  lad  was  about  twelve  years  old — Goethe  was  six.  Forty 
years  later  these  men  were  to  meet,  and  meet  as  equals. 
The  father  of  Mayer  Anselm  was  Anselm  Moses.  He  could 
not  boast  a  surname,  for  Jews,  not  being  legal  citizens, 
simply  aliens,  had  no  use  for  family  names.  If  they  occa- 
sionally took  them  on,  the  reigning  duke  might  deprive 
them  of  the  luxury  at  any  time,  without  anesthetics. 
If  a  man  had  two  names,  say  "Anselm  Moses,"  it  meant 
that  his  name  was  Anselm  and  that  he  was  the  son  of  Moses. 
Mayer  Anselm  was  the  son  of  Anselm.  Rothschild  means 
**Red  Shield,"  and  this  was  the  distinguishing  sign  on  the 
house.  All  the  people  in  that  house  were  "Red  Shields." 
The  house  was  seven  stories  high  and  at  one  time  a  hundred 
people  lived  in  it.  Later,  when  the  name  became  popular, 
all  of  the  people  in  that  house  called  themselves,  "Roths- 
chUds." 

In  Goethe's  time,  there  were  just  one  hundred  and  sixty 
houses  in  the  Frankfort  Ghetto,  and  these  were  occupied  by 
two  thousand,  three  hundred  Jews. 

Goethe  says  that  the  practice  of  walling  the  Jews  in  was  to 
facilitate  taxation — the  Jews  being  honored  by  an  assessment 
quite  double  that  which  Christians  paid.  At  one  time  any  Jew 

"3 


MAYER  A.  who  paid  two  hundred  and  fifty  florins  was  exempt  from 
ROTHSCHILD  wearing  a  yellow  hat  and  the  yellow  0  on  his  breast. 

Many  private  houses,  everywhere,  have  walls  around  them, 
and  the  plan  of  dividing  different  nationalities  from  each 
other,  by  setting  apart  a  certain  section  of  the  town  for  each, 
was  a  matter  of  natural  selection,  everywhere  practiced. 
Mayer  Anselm  grew  up  with  never  a  thought  that  he  belonged 
to  a  ** peculiar  people,"  nor  did  the  idea  of  persecution  ever 
trouble  him.  The  only  peculiar  people  are  those  who  do  not 
act  and  think  as  we  do.  Who  are  peculiar?  Oh,  the  others, 
the  others,  the  others.  ^  There  was  a  big  family  for  Anselm 
Moses  to  look  after.  All  were  hearty  and  healthy.  The  Mosaic 
Law  says  nothing  about  ventilation,  but  outside  of  this  little 
lapse  it  is  based  on  a  very  commonsense  plan  of  hygiene. 
^One  thing  which  adds  greatly  to  the  physical  endowment 
of  Jewish  children,  and  almost  makes  up  to  the  child  of  the 
Ghetto  for  the  lack  of  woods  and  fields,  is  that  he  is  not 
launched  on  the  sea  of  life  with  a  limited  supply  of  love. 
Jewish  children  do  not  refer  to  their  father  as  "the  Gov*ner," 
and  elderly  women  as  ** Salem  Witches,"  because  the  Jews 
as  a  people  recognize  the  rights  of  the  child. 
And  the  first  right  of  a  child  is  the  right  to  be  loved. 
In  the  average  Christian  household,  until  a  very  few  years 
ago,  the  child  grew  up  with  the  feeling  constantly  pressed 
upon  him  that  he  was  a  usurper  and  an  interloper.  Such 
questions  as,  **  Where  would  you  get  anything  to  eat  if  I 
did  not  provide  it?"  were  everywhere  flying  at  the  heads  of 
lisping  babyhood.  The  words  **must"  and  "shall"  were 
often  heard,  and  that  obedience  was  a  privilege  and  not  a 
duty  was  nowhere  taught.  All  parents  quoted  Solomon  as 
to  the  beauties  of  the  rod,  and  that  all  children  were  perverse, 
obstinate  and  stiff-necked  was  assumed  as  a  fact.  To  break 
the  will  of  a  child  was  a  very  essential  thing  to  do. 
114 


The  lack  of  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  that  the  Jew  has  MAYER  A. 
encountered  from  the  outside  world,  has  found  a  balance  in  ROTHSCHILD 
an  increased  expression  of  love  within  his  family.  That  most 
atrocious  English  plan  of  taking  the  child  from  his  parents 
at  a  tender  age  and  placing  him  in  a  boarding-school  managed 
by  holluschickies,  has  never  been  adopted  by  the  Jews. 
The  tendency  to  "run  away"  to  sea,  or  go  **out  West," 
or  **skip  out,"  are  results  of  the  loveless  plan  of  cheating 
childhood  of  its  divine  or  natural  rights  ^  The  houses  of 
prostitution  are  recruited  from  respectable  families  where 
the  formula,  *  *  Do-not-darken-that-door-again, "  leaps  lightly 
to  lips  that  read  the  New  Testament  aloud  night  and  morning 
and  recite  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  a  bishop's  voice. 
Fear,  repression  and  shock  to  vibrating  nerves  through 
threats,  injunctions  and  beatings  have  fixed  in  the  Christian 
races  a  whole  round  of  "children's  diseases,"  which  in  our 
ignorance  we  attribute  to  "the  will  of  God." 
Let  this  fact  be  stated,  that  old  folks  who  are  sent  over  the 
hill  to  the  poorhouse,  have  invited  their  fate.  And  conversely, 
elderly  people  who  are  treated  with  courtesy,  consideration, 
kindness  and  respect  are  those  who,  in  manhood's  morning, 
have  sown  the  seeds  of  love  and  kindness.  Water  rises  to  the 
height  of  its  source;  results  follow  causes;  chickens  come 
home  to  roost;  action  and  reaction  are  equal;  forces  set  in 
motion  continue  indefinitely  in  one  direction.  The  laws  of 
love  are  as  exact  as  the  laws  of  the  tides  that  moan  and  cry 
and  beat  upon  the  shores,  the  round  world  over. 
A  family  of  ten  children  born  and  reared  in  a  noisome  Ghetto, 
and  all  healthy  and  strong?  Impossible.  Yet  such  is  the  fact, 
and  not  a  rare  exception  either.  Happiness  is  the  great  pro- 
phylactic, and  nothing  is  so  sanitary  as  love,  even  though  it 
be  flavored  with  garlic. 

"5 


MAYER  A. 
ROTHSCHILD 


HE  father  of  Mayer  Anselm  was 
a  traveling  merchant — call  him  a 
peddler,  a  Jewish  peddler,  and  have 
done  with  it.  He  made  trips  out- 
side of  the  Ghetto,  and  used  to 
come  back  with  interesting  tales 
of  adventure,  that  he  would  relate 
to  the  household  and  neighbors 
who  would  drop  in. 
Not  many  Jews  ventured  outside 
the  Ghetto — to  do  so  was  to  invite 
insult,  robbery  and  violence  J> 
However,  to  get  out  is  to  grow.  This  man  traded  safety  for 
experience  and  so  got  out  and  grew.  He  evidently  knew  how 
to  take  care  of  himself  J>  He  was  courageous,  courteous, 
intelligent,  diplomatic.  He  made  money.  And  always  he 
wore  the  yellow  hat  and  the  yellow  patch  upon  his  breast. 
^^  In  the  "Red  Shield"  there  was  usually  at  least  one  Rabbi. 
One  of  the  sons  of  Anselm  Moses  must  be  a  Rabbi.  The 
parents  of  little  Mayer  Anselm  set  him  apart  for  the  syna- 
gogue— he  was  so  clever  at  reciting  prayers  and  so  glib 
with  responses.  Then  he  had  an  eczema  for  management, 
and  took  charge  of  all  the  games  when  the  children  played 
Hebrew  I-Spy  through  the  hallways  and  dark  corners  of 
the  big,  rambling  and  mysterious  "Red  Shield." 
Little  Mayer  must  have  been  nine  years  old  when  his  father 
first  took  him  along  on  one  of  his  trips.  It  was  a  wonderful 
event — they  were  gone  three  days,  and  when  they  returned 
the  boy  entertained  the  whole  Judengasse  with  tales,  slightly 
hand-illumined,  about  the  wonderful  things  they  had  seen. 
Q  One  thing  he  learned,  and  that  was  that  Christians  were 
not  the  drunken,  fighting,  treacherous  and  bloodthirsty 
people  he  had  supposed,  at  least  they  were  not  all  bad.  Not 
ii6 


once  were  they  insulted  or  molested.  ^They  had  called  at  MAYER  A. 
the  great  house  or  castle  of  the  Landgrave  to  sell  handker-  ROTHSCHILD 
chiefs,  combs  and  beads  to  the  servants,  and  accidentally 
they  had  met  the  Landgrave,  himself.  He  it  was  who  owned 
the  "Red  Shield."  The  agent  of  the  Landgrave  came  every 
month  to  collect  the  rent  from  everybody.  That  word  "Land- 
grave, "  simply  meant  "Landlord, "  a  term  still  used  even  in 
America,  where  there  are,  of  course,  no  Lords,  only  *  *  ramrods. " 
^  The  Landgrave  had  invited  Anselm  Moses  into  his  library 
to  see  his  wonderful  collection  of  coins,  and  Mayer  Anselm, 
of  course,  slipped  in,  too.  To  describe  the  wonders  of  that 
house  would  take  a  book  as  big  as  the  Torah — I  think  so! 
q  The  Landgrave  had  a  son,  aged  eleven,  going  on  twelve, 
and  his  name  was  William.  He  was  n't  as  big  as  Mayer,  and 
Mayer  would  n't  be  as  old  as  William  for  a  year,  and  even 
then  he  would  n't. 

Children  know  nothing  of  social  caste.  Caste  is  a  disease  of 
grown-ups.  It  is  caused  by  uric  acid  in  the  ego.  Children  meet 
as  equals — they  respond  naturally  without  so  much  as  a 
thought  as  to  whether  they  ought  to  love  one  another  or  not. 
^  William  got  acquainted  with  Mayer  by  holding  up  a  big 
speckled  marble,  and  then  in  a  burst  of  good-fellowship 
giving  the  marble  to  the  little  stranger  boy,  all  before  a  word 
had  been  said.  Then  while  the  Landgrave  was  showing  his 
treasures  to  Anselm  Moses,  who  himself  was  a  collector  in 
a  small  way,  the  boys  slipped  out  of  the  door,  and  William 
took  Mayer  to  see  the  stables. 

"What 's  it  for?"  asked  William  pointing  to  the  yellow  patch 
sewed  tight  to  the  breast  of  Mayer's  jacket. 
"That?"  answered  Mayer  proudly,  "Why,  that  means  that 
I  am  a  Jew,  and  I  live  in  the  Ghetto ! " 
William  gave  a  little  start  of  alarm.  He  looked  at  the  other 
lad,  so  brown  and  sturdy  and  frankly  open-eyed,  and  said 

117 


MAYER  A.    slowly,  "You  can't  be  a  Jew,  because — because  Jews  eat 
ROTHSCHILD    children!" 

"  I  'm  a  Jew — my  father  is  a  Jew — all  our  folks  are  Jews — the 
Jews  are  the  Chosen  People  of  God!"  Little  Mayer  spoke 
slowly  and  with  feeling. 

**The  Chosen  People  of  God?"  echoed  William. 
"Yes!" 

They  saw  the  horses,  and  Mayer  looked  at  them  with  won- 
dering eyes.  There  were  no  horses  in  the  Ghetto — just  push- 
carts and  wheelbarrows. 

William  had  been  lame — hip  disease,  or  something,  and  so 
had  never  been  away  down  to  the  city,  excepting  with  a  nurse, 
or  in  a  carriage  with  his  tutor. 

The  boys  entered  the  house  and  the  Landgrave  was  still 
explaining  to  Anselm  Moses  how  all  coins  made  by  the  Assyr- 
ians were  modeled  by  hand,  not  stamped  out  with  a  die,  as 
was  done  by  the  Greeks.  ^The  boys  had  n't  been  missed. 
"Can't  I  have  one  of  those  to  wear  on  my  coat,  too?"  asked 
William,  pulling  at  his  father's  sleeve,  and  pointing  to  the 
yellow  patch  on  Mayer's  jacket. 

"One  of  what,  my  son?"  asked  the  Landgrave  seriously. 
^  "One  of  those  yellow  medals ! " 

The  Landgrave  looked  at  Mayer's  yellow  patch,  and  then 
involuntarily  at  the  badge  worn  by  the  boy's  father. 
The  Landgrave's  fine  face  flushed  scarlet. 
His  gaze  met  the  steady,  manly  look  of  Anselm  Moses. 
They  understood  each  other.  No  one  was  near,  save  the  two 
hoys.  They  met  as  equals,  as  men  meet  on  the  plain  or  desert. 
^*It  's  all  a  mistake — a  foolish  mistake,  Anselm,  and  some 
day  we  will  outgrow  it.  A  man  's  a  man ! " 
He  held  out  his  hand.  QThe  Jew  grasped  it  firmly,  and  both 
men  smiled — the  smile  of  friendship  and  understanding  J^ 
As  the  Jew  and  his  son  started  to  go,  the  Landgrave  gave 
ii8 


little  Mayer  a  big  copper  penny,  and  asked  him  to  come  back  MAYER  A. 

some  day  and  play  with  William.  ROTHSCHILD 

And  Anselm  Moses,  the  Jew,  took  up  his  pack  that  he  had 

left  at  the  servant's  quarters,  and  holding  the  hand  of  little 

Mayer  Anselm,  they  walked  out  of  the  castle  yard,  down 

among  the  winding  trees  to  the  road. 

"We  '11  go  back  some  day  and  see  him,"  said  little  Mayer 

Anselm  as  his  tongue  began  to  run  fast  recounting  the  strange 

things  he  had  just  seen. 

**  Impossible,  my  son,  impossible — we  are  Jews,  and  they  are 

Christians!"  Q Little  Mayer  couldn't  see  why  that  should 

make  any  difference. 


AYER  ANSELM  took  to  his  father's 
business  as  a  bird  takes  to  the  air. 
^  From  selling  trinkets  he  began 
dealing  in  jewelry,  old  coins,  curi- 
osities and  paintings.  He  picked 
his  customers,  and  knew  the  weak- 
nesses of  each — certain  things  were 
bought  for  certain  people. 
The  idea  of  becoming  a  Rabbi  was 
abandoned — he  wanted  temporal 
power,  not  spiritual.  Money  to  the 
intelligent  Jew  is  the  symbol  of 
power — of  independence.  There  may  be  men  who  love  the 
money  itself,  but  surely  this  man  did  n't.  He  was  daring  in 
its  use — he  had  the  courage  to  take  risks.  His  was  a  quest 
for  power. 

When  about  twenty,  he  traveled  as  far  as  Hanover  to  visit 

119 


MAYER  A.  ^  kinsman,  and  there  he  served  for  several  months  as  clerk 
ROTHSCHILD  '^^  ^  bank.  He  had  a  mind  like  those  Japanese  who  travel  to 
absorb,  and  waste  no  time  in  battling  error. 
Returning  to  Frankfort  he  transformed  his  father's  little 
store  into  a  bank  and  filled  the  window  with  real  money  to 
the  great  delight  and  astonishment  of  the  neighbors.  From 
Hanover  he  brought  a  collection  of  rare  coins.  The  business 
his  father  had  established  gradually  took  on  a  cosmopolitan 
look.  The  house  of  the  Red  Shield  became  a  sort  of  center 
of  trade  for  the  whole  Judengasse. 

And  all  the  time  the  friendship  with  the  Landgrave  and  his 
son  had  continued.  Commissions  were  given  to  Mayer  to 
buy  certain  coins  and  pictures.  Finally  he  was  entrusted  to 
collect  the  rents  of  the  Red  Shield.  He  did  this  so  thoroughly 
and  well,  and  was  so  prompt  in  his  reports,  that  he  was 
finally  named  as  custodian  of  the  property. 
Other  property  was  given  to  him  to  look  after. 
Jews  came  to  him  for  advice,  and  Christians  counseled  with 
him  as  to  loans. 

He  became  known  as  **The  Honest  Jew,"  which  title,  we 
hope,  carried  with  it  no  refiection  on  his  co-religionists. 
There  are  men — a  very,  very  few — who  are  thus  honored 
with  the  title  of  "Honest  John."  Gamblers  can  be  recalled 
whose  word  was  worth  more  than  their  bond.  There  are 
horsemen,  gamblers,  too,  if  you  please,  who  have  little 
respect  for  the  moral  code,  but  who  never  prove  false  to  a 
trust.  ^  Mayer  Anselm  had  the  coolness  and  the  courage  of 
a  good  gambler — in  business  he  surely  was  ever  ready  to 
back  his  opinion.  He  would  pay  five  hundred  thalers  for  a 
jewel,  give  the  man  his  price,  and  pocket  the  gem  silently, 
while  the  hagglers  and  quibblers  were  screwing  up  their 
courage  to  offer  a  hundred  for  it.  But  here  was  the  difference 
— Mayer  Anselm  knew  what  he  was  going  to  do  with  the 
lao 


jewel.  He  had  a  customer  in  mind.  He  knew  the  customer,     MAYER  A. 
he  knew  the  jewel,  and  he  knew  his  own  mind.  ROTHSCHILD 

The  Landgrave  grew  to  lean  on  Mayer  Anselm  of  the  Red 
Shield.  He  made  him  "Court  Jew,"  or  official  treasurer  of 
the  principality.  This  carried  with  it  "the  freedom  of  the 
city,"  and  being  a  free  man — no  longer  technically  a  Jew 
— he  had  a  name,  and  the  name  he  chose  was  "Rothschild," 
or  the  Red  Shield,  Mayer  Anselm  Rothschild.  ^  He  no  longer 
wore  the  yellow  badge  of  a  despised  race.  Yet  he  refused  to 
leave  the  Ghetto — the  House  of  the  Red  Shield  was  his  birth- 
place, here  his  parents  had  lived  and  died.  Here  would  he  live 
and  die.  He  was  still  a  Jew,  earnest  and  zealous  in  keeping 
the  Law,  the  "President"  or  head  of  the  synagogue. 
He  was  happily  married  to  Letizia — she  had  no  other  name 
— and  babies  were  coming  along  with  astonishing  regularity. 
^  To  him  and  his  good  wife  were  born  five  sons  and  five 
daughters.  The  Red  Shield  was  now  his  own  property,  he 
having  purchased  the  freehold — a  thing  he  could  not  do 
until  he  had  attained  "the  freedom  of  the  city." 
Then  we  get  the  rather  curious  condition  of  Mayer  Anselm 
supervising  the  municipal  affairs  of  the  whole  city;  and 
his  sons,  grown  to  manhood,  still  wearing  the  yellow  badge, 
and  obliged  to  keep  within  the  Ghetto  at  certain  hours,  on 
serious  penalty. 

And  it  is  worth  while  noting  that  Mayer  Anselm  kept  the 
laws  of  the  Ghetto,  and  asked  no  favor  for  himself  beyond 
that  granted  to  other  Jews,  save  that  he  did  not  wear  the 
badge.  Beyond  this  he  was  a  Jew,  and  his  pride  refused  to 
allow  him  to  be  anything  else.  And  yet  he  served  the  Christian 
public  with  a  purity  of  purpose  and  an  unselfishness  that  won 
for  him  the  reputation  of  honesty  that  was  his  all  his  life  Jt> 
By  his  influence  the  Ghetto  was  enlarged,  several  of  the 
streets  widened,  and  all  houses  were'placed  under  sanitary 

121 


MAYER  A.  inspection.  He  established  a  compulsory  free  school  system 
ROTHSCHILD  and  maintained  an  art  gallery  in  the  Ghetto  that  was  a  center 
of  education  for  the  entire  district.  ^  When  this  gallery  was 
dedicated)  Goethe  came,  and  made  a  speech  of  congratulation. 
He  was  the  guest  of  the  Red  Shield.  Afterward,  Rothschild  re- 
turned the  visit  and  spent  several  days  at  Weimar  with  the 
great  poet,  and  always  they  were  on  very  friendly  terms. 


HE  son  of  the  Landgrave  became, 
himself,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse- 
Cassel,  and  afterward  Elector.  He 
is  also  known  as  William  IX. 
He  was  book-lover,  numismatist, 
and  a  man  of  many  gentle  virtues. 
I  know  of  only  one  blot  on  his 
official  'scutcheon,  but  this  was  so 
serious  that,  for  a  time,  it  blocked 
his  political  fortune.  In  this  affair, 
Rothschild  was  co-respondent  J^ 
Rothschild  was  Court  Jew,  and 
beyond  a  doubt,  attended  to  all  details. 
During  the  American  Revolutionary  War,  William  IX. 
loaned  twelve  thousand  soldiers,  a  goodly  portion  of  his 
army,  to  one  George  III.  of  England,  to  go  and  fight  the 
American  Colonies.  This  is  the  first  and  only  time  that  Ger- 
mans have  ever  carried  arms  against  Americans.  These 
Hessians  were  splendid,  sturdy  soldiers  and  would  have 
been  almost  invincible  if  fighting  to  protect  their  homes, 
but  in  America  they  were  only  half-hearted. 
The  bones  of  many  of  these  poor  fellows  were  scattered 

122 


through  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  and  most  of  those  MAYER  A. 
who  survived  until  Cornwallis  offered  his  sword  to  Wash-  ROTHSCHILD 
ington — and    had  it    refused — settled  down    and    became 
good  Pennsylvania  Dutch. 

Around  Reading  and  Lancaster,  are  various  worthy  Daugh- 
ters of  the  Revolution,  whose  credential  is  that  their  grand- 
sires  fought  with  Washington.  The  fact  that  the  grandsires 
aforesaid  were  from  Hesse,  sold  at  so  much  a  head  by  a 
Governor  in  need  of  ready  cash,  need  not  weigh  in  the  scale. 
A  woman 's  a  woman  for  a  *  that.  ^  The  amount  of  money 
which  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse-Cassel  received  from  the 
English  Government  for  the  use  of  his  twelve  thousand  men 
was  six  hundred  thousand  thalers;  and  while  a  thaler  is 
equivalent  to  only  about  seventy-five  cents,  it  was  then 
worth  as  much  as  an  American  dollar  is  worth  now. 
These  six  hundred  thousand  thalers  were  a  straight  bonus, 
for  the  English  Government  agreed  to  pay  the  Hessian 
soldiers  the  same  that  they  paid  their  own  English  soldiers, 
and  to  treat  them  in  all  other  ways  as  their  own. 
A  second  division  of  four  thousand  men  was  afterward 
supplied,  for  which  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  was  paid  two 
hundred  thousand  thalers. 

Alluring  tales  of  loot  were  held  out  to  the  soldiers,  also 
educational  advantages,  somewhat  after  the  style  of  the 
recruiting  posters  in  this  Year  of  Grace,  Nineteen  Hundred 
and  Nine,  that  seek  to  lead  and  lure  the  lusty  youth  of  America 
to  enlist  in  the  cause  of  Mars.  ^Of  course  the  common 
people  knew  nothing  of  the  details  of  this  deal  of  Hesse  with 
England  ^  The  Americans  were  represented  to  them  as 
savages  who  had  arisen  against  their  masters,  and  were 
massacring  men,  women  and  children.  flTo  stop  this  blood- 
shed was  looked  upon  as  a  duty  for  the  sake  of  humanity. 
Let  it  be  stated  that  these  Hessian  soldiers  were  not  sent  to 

123 


MAYER  A.  America  against  their  will.  They  voted  by  regiments  to  go  to 
ROTHSCHILD  the  defense  of  their  English  Cousins.  All  of  the  officers  were 
given  a  month's  pay  as  a  bonus,  and  this  no  doubt  helped 
their  zeal.  The  soldiers  were  to  go  simply  until  the  war  was 
over,  which  was  represented  would  be  in  one  year,  or  pos- 
sibly less.  QThe  money  came  so  easily,  that  the  Landgrave 
of  Hesse  in  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Ninety-four,  supplied 
the  English  with  a  third  detachment  of  four  thousand  troops^ 
this  time,  to  fight  the  French. 

It  is  not  always  the  case  that  the  terms  of  sale  of  human 
beings  in  war-time  is  so  well  known  as  are  these  particular 
deals.  The  Hessian  officials  kept  no  books.  They  made  no 
records,  and  wrote  no  letters  ^  Boards  of  Investigation  were 
powerless.  The  business  was  transacted  by  personal  messen- 
gers who  went  to  London  and  closed  the  deal  by  word  of 
mouth,  and  later  brought  back  the  coin.  Wise  men  write 
few  letters.  What  would  you?  Is  Farley  a  rogue  and  a  varlet! 
However,  things  in  Threadneedle  Street  cannot  be  done  in. 
secret.  England  has  a  wonderful  system  of  bookkeeping  and 
bureau-craft — there  are  spies  upon  spies,  and  checks  and 
counterchecks,  so  that  filching  a  large  sum  from  the  Bank  of 
England  has  been  a  trick  never  so  far  successfully  turned. 
^England's  share  in  this  transaction  was  not  dishonorable — 
that  is  to  say,  to  buy  a  man  is  not  so  bad  as  to  sell  one. 
All  she  did  was  to  hire  strike-breakers. 
English  statesmen  generally  regarded  the  matter  as  a  bit 
of  necessary  war-time  expediency.  If  the  rebel  Colonies 
could  be  put  down  by  hiring  a  few  extra  soldiers,  why  hire 
them,  of  course. 

Not  so,  said  Edmund  Burke,  who  gave  the  matter  an  un- 
looked-for publicity,  by  denouncing  the  Hessians  as 
"hired  assassins.'*  He  prophesied  that  the  American  would 
not  consider  these  hirelings  as  amenable  to  the  rules  of 
124 


civilized  warfare,  but  would  "welcome  them  with  bloody  MAYER  A. 
hands  to  hospitable  graves" — a  phrase  so  fine  that  it  was,  ROTHSCHILD 
years  after,  seized  upon  by  Tom  Corwin  and  applied  to  the 
conquest  of  Mexico.  ^  Charles  Fox  took  a  like  view  of  the 
situation,  and  between  him  and  Burke  the  word  "  Hessian" 
reached  America  with  a  taint  upon  it  which  a  century  of 
use  has  been  unable  to  disinfect. 

The  protest  in  the  House  of  Commons  did  not  directly  avail, 
but  there  is  a  suspicion  that  a  wise  protest  against  a  great 
wrong  never  dies  on  the  empty  air.  Burke's  accusation  of 
tarter  and  sale  rumbled  throughout  Europe,  and  created 
a  sentiment  of  S5ntnpathy  for  America,  especially  in 
France.  Benjamin  Franklin,  Thomas  Paine,  and  Silas 
Deane  made  capital  of  it,  and  repeated  the  words  **  hired 
assassins"  and  thereby  helped  us  to  borrow  money  to  fight 
said  assassins.  So  much  for  the  law  of  compensation. 
As  for  the  Landgrave,  there  was  a  cool  million  in  bullion  in 
his  strong-box.  He  smiled,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and 
calmly  explained  that  George  Washington  the  Rebel,  had 
united  with  the  Indian  Savages  and  was  murdering  all  loyal 
English  subjects  in  America,  and  for  a  few  good  Germans  to 
go  to  the  rescue  of  England  and  help  put  down  the  insur- 
rection was  a  Christian  act,  and  moreover,  **It  was  nobody's 
business  but  their  own. "  He  thought  that  this  disposed  of  the 
matter,  but  the  ghost  would  not  down.  ^In  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Eight,  an  Imperial  Decree  was  issued  by  the 
Emperor  to  this  effect,  **  Whereas,  it  seems  that  the  House 
of  Hesse-Cassel  has  for  some  years  persisted  in  selling  its 
subjects  to  the  English  Crown,  to  bear  arms  in  quarrels  that 
are  none  of  ours,  and  that  by  this  means  has  amassed  a  large 
fortune,  therefore  this  detestable  avarice  has  now  brought 
its  own  punishment,  and  Hesse-Cassel  from  now  on  ceases  to 
exist,  being  incorporated  with  the  Kingdom  of  Westphalia." 

125 


MAYER  A. 
ROTHSCHILD 


ROUBLES,  we  are  told,  never 
come  singly.  Of  this  William  the 
Elector  was  convinced  ^  The 
Emperor  had  cut  off  his  official 
head  with  a  stroke  of  the  pen. 
The  money  he  possessed  was  to  be 
taken  by  legal  attachment,  its 
lawful  ownership  to  be  determined 
in  the  courts. 

The  lawsuit  would  have  been  a 
long  and  tedious  one,  but  happily 
it  was  not  to  be.  Napoleon  with 
his  conquering  army  was  sweeping  Europe.  The  Corsican 
was  approaching  Frankfort.  The  rumor  was  that  the  city 
was  to  be  wiped  out  of  existence.  Napoleon  hated  the  Hessians 
— he  knew  all  about  their  having  hired  themselves  out  to 
fight  the  Americans.  Aye!  and  the  French!  The  Hessians 
must  be  punished.  Justice !  The  late  Elector  of  Hesse-Cassel 
was  now  only  a  private  citizen,  but  his  record  was  his  offense. 
Word  had  been  brought  to  him  that  Napoleon  had  said  he 
would  hang  him — when  he  caught  him.  It  is  not  at  all  likely 
that  this  would  have  happened — Napoleon  must  have 
secretly  admired  the  business  stroke  that  could  extract  so 
large  a  sum  from  England 's  exchequer.  It  was  on  this  same 
excursion  that  Napoleon  placed  a  guard  in  Goethe  *s  house  to 
protect  the  poet  from  possible  harm.  "If  I  were  not  Napoleon, 
I  would  be  Wolfgang  Goethe,"  bluntly  said  the  little  man 
without  removing  his  cocked  hat,  when  he  met  the  King  of 
Letters,  thus  paraphrasing  his  prototype,  Alexander.  Goethe 
gave  him  a  copy  of  his  last  book.  **It  lacks  one  thing — your 
autograph !  "said  the  man  who, was  busy  conquering  a  world. 
Goethe,  being  an  author,  had  waited,  expecting  this,  and  so 
was  not  disappointed. 
126 


Frankfort  was  looted,  but  not  burned.  Money,  jewelry  and  MAYER  A. 
portable  wealth  were  all  the  French  wanted.  The  Castle  was  ROTHSCHILD 
used  as  a  stable,  and  the  paintings  and  statuary  served  as 
targets  for  the  rollicking  soldiers  who  had  exploited  the 
wine-cellars.  The  vast  amount  of  specie,  which  was  reported 
the  Elector  possessed,  was  missing — the  strong-boxes  were 
empty.  Soldiers  were  set  to  work  digging  all  about  the  house 
for  signs  of  hidden  treasure,  but  none  was  found. 
The  Elector  and  his  family  were  distributed,  as  they  say  of 
the  type  in  limited  editions.  Gone — no  one  knew  where ! 
The  French  visited  the  Ghetto,  but  by  order  of  Napoleon, 
his  soldiers  were  never  severe  upon  the  Jews.  The  Jews  had 
little  or  nothing  to  do  with  politics,  and  Napoleon  with  his 
usual  nonchalance  said,  "They  have  suffered  enough!" 
Napoleon  called  himself  **The  Protector  of  the  Oppressed,'' 
and  tried  occasionally  to  live  up  to  his  self-conferred  title. 
^The  Red  Shield  received  a  call,  and  Mayer  Rothschild 
handed  over  his  keys  to  the  officer,  in  person.  The  house  was 
searched,  and  cash  to  the  extent  of  ten  thousand  thalers 
appropriated.  The  officer  gave  Rothschild  a  receipt  for  the 
amount,  and  assured  the  banker  it  was  but  a  loan.  He 
thanked  Rothschild  for  his  courtesy.  They  drank  a  bottle  of 
wine  together,  and  the  Frenchman,  with  profuse  apologies, 
excused  himself,  having  pressing  duties  to  perform,  and 
withdrew,  first  cordially  shaking  hands.  The  French  were 
convinced  that  when  William  the  Elector  fled,  he  had  taken 
with  him  his  money.  That  he  should  have  entrusted  it  to  an- 
other, and  especially  a  Jew,  seemed  preposterous.  Yet  such 
was  the  case.  William  had  fled,  disguised  as  a  civil  engineer, 
carrying  with  him  in  his  chaise  an  outfit  of  surveying  instru- 
ments. All  of  his  money  had  been  turned  over  to  Mayer 
Anselm  Rothschild.  The  many  biographers  place  the  sum 
anywhere  from  one  to  fifty  million  dollars.  The  fact  seems 

127 


MAYER  A.  to  be  that  it  was  a  little  less  than  two  million.  Not  even 
ROTHSCHILD  a  receipt  was  given  for  the  money,  for  such  a  document 
might  have  led  to  locating  the  gold  ^  The  Elector  would 
not  even  count  it.  He  said,  **If  I  do  not  come  back,  it  is  yours 
— you  helped  me  to  get  it.  If  I  return,  you  are  an  honest 
man — and  that  is  all  there  is  about  it."  The  Jew  was  touched 
to  tears.  The  obligation  was  one  fraught  with  great  risk,  for 
the  money,  and  for  himself.  But  there  was  only  one  thing  to 
do — assume  the  responsibility. 

That  this  vast  sum  of  money  was  given  into  the  hands  of 
Rothschild,  no  one  has  ever  denied.  But  as  to  how  he  secreted 
it  from  the  French  has  been  explained  by  the  very  childlike 
tale  that  he  buried  it  in  the  garden  back  of  his  house. 
In  the  first  place,  there  were  no  gardens  in  the  Ghetto,  and 
in  the  second  place,  money  buried  in  a  garden  yields  no 
return,  and  cannot  to  advantage  be  left  there  forever. 
At  this  time  England  was  just  becoming  a  Mecca  for  Jews, 
for  no  matter  how  much  the  Corsican  had  to  say  about  his 
regard  for  the  Jews,  they  had  no  regard  for  him.  He  stood  for 
war  and  violence,  and  his  soldiers,  as  a  rule,  knew  not  their 
master's  leniency  for  the  Jew.  Banks,  vaults,  and  the  shops 
of  jewelers  stood  small  chance  in  the  face  of  an  advancing 
army,  drunk  on  success.  QMany  Jews,  rich  and  poor,  were 
fleeing  to  England.  Rothschild  had  special  boats  under  his 
direction  upon  which  he  sold  passages  to  his  brethren  J^ 
Even  before  the  treasure  of  the  Elector  was  placed  in  his 
hands  he  had  inwardly  planned  for  its  transportation.  Eng- 
land was  then  the  safest  country  in  Europe.  England,  alone, 
was  the  one  country  that  had  not  been  seriously  threatened 
by  revolution.  And  it  was  the  one  country  that  was  reasonably 
safe  from  the  grasp  of  the  French.  ^  Rothschild's  faith  in 
England  was  proven  when  he  sent  all  of  his  own  spare  cash 
to  London.  That  he  would  transport  there  the  treasure  of 
128 


William  the  Elector,  was  the  one  purpose  in  his  mind.  And  MAYER  A. 
how  to  carry  it !  You  may  send  treasure  by  armed  guards,  in  ROTHSCHILD 
which  case  you  invite  attack  by  advertising  what  you  are  doing. 
Or  you  can  divide  your  money  up  among  poor  travelers,  and 
by  sending  your  people  at  different  times,  thus  lessen  the  risk. 
Rothschild  had  been  entrusting  the  safe  transportation  of 
money  to  London  in  the  care  of  Jews — poor  Jews.  And  now 
he  picked  his  immigrants  and  took  them  into  his  confidence. 
^He  was  an  honest  man — the  title  of  the  Honest  Jew  was 
his  by  divine  right.  To  serve  him  was  looked  upon  as  a 
precious  privilege.  And  now  almost  every  mother  of  a  big 
family,  bound  for  England  and  freedom,  carried  around  her 
ample  waist  a  belt  of  gold.  It  was  to  be  given  to  Nathan 
Rothschild,  the  son  of  Mayer  Rothschild,  who  was  now 
established  as  a  banker  in  London,  as  soon  as  she  and  her 
brood  reached  London. 

Rothschild  trusted  the  poor  and  lowly,  and  in  so  doing  his 
faith,  so  far  as  we  know,  was  never  misplaced.  It  is  not  at 
all  likely  that  the  Jews  knew  whose  money  it  was  they  were 
carrying,  nor  did  they  know  that  several  hundred  other  Jews 
were  being  trusted  in  a  similar  way.  All  they  knew  was  that 
Mayer  Anselm  had  come  to  them  and  asked  them  as  a  great 
favor,  as  a  friend,  to  carry  this  belt  and  give  it  to  his  dear  ^ 

son,  Nathan,  in  England.  Of  course  Rothschild's  confidence 
was  not  misplaced.  A  few  years  later  this  was  the  Rothschild 
method  of  transporting  treasure  all  over  Europe — to  dispatch 
say  a  hundred  poor  Jews  at  different  times,  and  mixed  up 
among  them  was  the  treasure.  Honest  men  can  safely  trust 
others — honest  men,  as  a  rule,  are  safe  even  with  rogues. 
There  is  a  spiritual  law  which  governs  here — askBenLindseyl 
And  so  the  treasure  which  had  originally  come  from  England, 
found  its  way  back  to  Britain.  It  was  deposited  among 
various  banks  and  bankers,  to  the  personal  credit  of  the 

129 


MAYER  A.  House  of  Rothschild,  drawing  interest  at  five  per  cent. 
ROTHSCHELD  qin  the  meantime  Mayer  Anselm  remained  at  Frankfort, 
living  in  the  Red  Shield,  occupying  the  little  shop  which  had 
been  occupied  by  his  father.  He  smoked  his  big  pipe,  smiled, 
went  to  prayers — and  waited.  When  the  French  soldiers 
had  gutted  his  safe,  he  sighed,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and 
said,  **It  is  the  Lord's  will — those  whom  he  loveth  he 
chasteneth.  Blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord. "  ^  He  waited. 


OTHSCHILD  brought  his  children 
up  to  economize  time  and  money, 
and  to  be  useful.  In  childhood,  all 
had  served  as  clerks  and  helpers  in 
the  little  bank — the  girls  included. 
They  were  bankers  by  prenatal 
tendency  and  by  education.  So 
strong  was  the  banking  instinct  in 
the  family,  that  three  of  the  girls 
married  men  who  afterward  be- 
came bankers,  probably  being  led 
into  the  financial  way  they  should 
walk  through  marital  influences.  And  so  they  were  duly 
absorbed  into  the  great  House  of  Rothschild.  In  order  to  facili- 
tate the  business  of  the  Landgrave,  who  had  considerable 
property  in  Hanover,  Rothschild  sent  his  third  son,  Nathan 
there  and  established  a  bank.  This  boy  Nathan  was  the  finan- 
cial genius  of  the  family.  He  was  the  only  one  of  the  five  boys 
who  surpassed  their  father  in  initiative.  And  this  is  saying 
much,  because  the  other  four  were  all  strong  and  able  men. 
Anselm,  the  oldest  boy,  took  his  father's  work  and  became 
130 


head  of  the  Frankfort  house.  Salomon  managed  the  branch  MAYER  A. 
at  Vienna;  Nathan  founded  the  branch  in  Hanover,  and  ROTHSCHILD 
turned  it  over  to  one  of  his  brothers-in-law  and  went  to 
London;  Carl  did  good  work  at  Paris,  and  James  was  at 
Naples  and  Rome.  In  addition  to  these  six  principal  banks, 
the  House  of  Rothschild  had  agencies  in  over  forty  different 
European  cities.  William  the  Elector  had  turned  his  money 
over  to  Rothschild  in  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Six.  He 
had  remained  in  hiding  for  four  years.  The  French  had  placed 
a  price  upon  his  head  on  account  of  his  having  sold  his 
troops  to  the  English  to  fight  the  French.  He  had  not  com- 
municated with  Rothschild  for  fear  of  involving  him. 
And  now  behold!  like  lightning  out  of  a  clear  sky,  came  a 
pardon  from  Napoleon,  **for  all  alleged  offenses,"  and  a 
reinstatement  of  the  House  of  Hesse-Cassel  to  its  former 
proud  position.  This  whole  procedure  was  essentially 
Napoleonic.  The  Corsican  killed  or  kissed,  as  the  mood  took 
him.  Napoleon  hated  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  who  had 
done  the  deposing,  and  as  a  sort  of  insult  or  rebuke  to  that 
particular  royal  party,  he  sought  out  the  man's  enemies  and 
exalted  them.  ^  William  came  out  of  hiding,  back  to  Frank- 
fort, and  was  received  by  the  people  with  open  arms.  He 
sought  out  Rothschild  at  his  office  in  the  Judengasse  of  the 
Ghetto.  The  banker  received  him  with  courtesy,  but  with- 
out emotion.  fl**My  money — my  treasure,  Mayer  Anselm, 
— the  French  stole  it  from  you  I  know,'*  said  William. 
**  Spare  me  the  details,  I  only  come  to  you  now  for  a  loan — 
you  will  not  refuse  me — we  were  boys  together,  Mayer 
Anselm,  boys  together.  I  loved  you.  Fate  has  smitten  me  sore, 
but  now  I  have  my  name  back  and  my  broken  estate — I 
must  begin  all  over  jt  The  loan — you  will  not  refuse  me?" 
The  banker  coughed  gently,  smiled,  and  answered,  **I  regret 
I  have  no  money  to  loan  now,  but  the  funds  you  deposited 

131 


MAYER  A.  with  me  are  safe.  The  best  I  can  do  is  to  give  you  Exchange 
ROTHSCHILD  on  London,  with  such  little  ready  money  as  you  now  require. 
^I  have  been  expecting  you,  so  here  is  the  schedule.  The 
principal,  with  interest  at  five  per  cent  makes  me  your 
debtor  for  a  little  over  two  million  thalers.  My  son  Nathan, 
in  London,  has  the  money  subject  to  your  check." 
William  stared,  started,  clutched  the  bars  across  the  little 
window  for  support,  and  burst  into  tears.  He  was  taken  to 
the  residence  part  of  the  house,  and  Letizia  served  him  with 
tea  and  things  Kosher.  William  became  calm,  and  then 
declared,  "The  principal,  Mayer,  I  shall  never  touch.  I  should 
not  know  what  to  do  with  it,  anyway.  Pay  me  two  per  cent 
interest  on  it  and  it  is  all  I  shall  ever  ask.  "And  it  was  so  done. 


AYER  ANSELM  died  in  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Twelve,  aged  sixty- 
nine.  But  long  before  he  passed 
out  he  had  fixed  in  the  minds  of 
his  children  the  wisdom  of  being 
loyal  to  the  family  interests.  **One 
banking  house  may  fail,  but  five 
standing  true  to  each  other,  in 
different  countries,  never  can," 
he  said. 

Nathan  had  gravitated  by  divine 
right  to  the  head  of  the  concern. 
flin  times  of  doubt  all  the  others  looked  to  him. 
To  Nathan  Rothschild  must  be  given  the  credit  for  a  financial 
stroke  that  lifted  the  Rothschilds  absolutely  out  and  away 
from  competition.  ^  It  was  the  spring  of  Eighteen  Hundred 
132 


and  Fifteen.  Napoleon  had  been  banished  to  Elba,  and  now  MAYER  A. 
returned  like  a  conquering  hero.  His  magnetic  name  was  ROTHSCHILD 
rolling  opposition  before  him  as  the  sun  dissipates  the  clouds. 
Europe  was  in  a  tumult  of  terror! 

Would  Napoleon  do  again  what  he  had  done  before — trample 
the  cities  beneath  his  inconsiderate  feet  and  parcel  out  the 
people  and  the  land  among  his  favorites ! 
England  was  shaken  to  her  centre.  "This  time  Britain  shall 
not  go  unpunished,'  *  declared  the  Corsican. 
Business  was  paralyzed.  The  banks  were  not  loaning  a  dollar ; 
many  had  closed  and  refused  to  honor  the  checks  of  de- 
positors. People  with  money  were  hoarding  it.  England  was 
trjdng  to  raise  funds  to  strengthen  her  defenses,  and  fit  out 
her  soldiery  in  better  fighting  shape,  but  the  money  was  not 
forthcoming.  Government  bonds  had  dropped  to  sixty-five, 
and  a  new  loan  at  seven  per  cent  had  met  with  only  a  few 
straggling  applications. 

This  was  the  condition  on  the  First  of  June,  Eighteen  Hun- 
dred and  Fifteen.  The  Armies  of  the  Allies  were  gathering 
gear  for  a  final  struggle,  but  there  were  those  who  declared 
that  if  Napoleon  should  walk  out  before  certain  divisions  of 
this  Army,  wearing  his  uniform  of  the  Little  Corporal, 
bearing  no  weapons,  and  address  the  soldiers  as  brothers, 
they  would  throw  down  their  guns  and  cry,  **Command  us!" 
q  Nathan  Rothschild  there  in  London  made  his  plans.  With 
him  to  think  was  to  act.  There  was  no  time  to  consult  his 
brothers  or  his  mother,  as  he  usually  did  on  affairs  of  great 
moment.  He  called  his  cashier,  and  gave  him  quick  and 
final  orders:  "I  am  going  across  to  the  Continent.  I  shall 
see  the  downfall  of  Napoleon — or  his  triumph.  If  Napoleon 
goes  down,  I  shall  send  a  letter  to  myself — a  blank  sheet  of 
paper  in  an  envelope.  When  you  get  this,  buy  English  Bonds 
— buy  quickly,  but  use  a  dozen  different  men,  so  as  not  to 

133 


MAYER  A.  stampede  the  market.  We  have  a  million  pounds  in  British 
ROTHSCHILD  go^^ — ^^e  it  all,  and  buy,  if  necessary  up  to  five  points  of  par." 
He  rode  away  on  horseback.  He  left  a  man  with  a  strong 
and  fast  horse  every  forty  miles  from  London  to  Dover, 
then  from  Calais  to  Brussels.  A  swift-sailing  yacht  waited 
at  Calais,  and  there  was  a  reward  of  one  hundred  guineas 
for  the  captain  if  he  crossed  the  Channel  inside  of  four  hours, 
after  getting  a  special  letter  addressed  to  Nathan  Roths- 
child. There  was  a  rich  reward  also  for  each  rider  if  he  rode 
his  forty  miles  in  less  than  four  hours. 
Rothschild  watched  away  the  night  of  the  Seventeenth  of 
June,  circling  uneasily  the  outposts  of  Brussels. 
He  saw  the  Battle  of  Waterloo — or  such  of  that  mad  con- 
fusion as  was  visible.  He  saw  the  French  ride  headlong  into 
that  open  ditch ;  and  he  saw  the  last  stand  of  the  Old  Guard. 
^Whether  Napoleon  was  beaten  or  not  no  one  could  say. 
**He  '11  be  back  tomorrow  with  reinforcements,**  many  said. 
Nathan  Rothschild  thought  otherwise. 
At  nightfall  he  drew  the  girth  of  his  saddle  two  holes  tighter, 
threw  away  his  pistols,  coat  and  hat,  and  rode  away,  on  a 
gentle  patter.  After  two  miles  this  was  increased  to  a  stiff 
gallop.  He  knew  his  horse — he  was  turning  off  each  mile  in 
just  five  minutes.  He  rode  sixty  miles  in  five  hours,  using  up 
three  horses.  The  messenger  to  whom  he  tossed  his  saddle- 
bags asked  no  questions,  but  leaping  astride  his  horse, 
dived  into  the  darkness  and  was  gone.  Rothschild's  men  were 
twenty-four  hours  ahead  of  the  regular  post. 
When  the  news  reached  London  that  Wellington  had  won, 
the  Banking  House  of  Rothschild  had  no  cash,  but  its  safe 
was  stuffed  with  English  Securities. 

Nathan  Rothschild  made  his  way  leisurely  back  to  London. 
^On  arriving  there  he  found  himself  richer  by  over  five 
hundred  thousand  pounds,  than  he  was  when  he  rode  away. 

134 


N  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twenty-  MAYER  A. 
two,    the    Emperor    of    Austria  ROTHSCHILD 
conferred  the  title  of  Baron  on  the 
sons    of    Mayer    Anselm    Roths- 
child J>  Jt> 

It  was  the  first  and  only  time  in 
history  where  five  brothers  were 
so  honored  at  one  time. 
Certain  sarcastic  persons  have 
pointed  out  the  fact  that  this 
wholesale  decoration  was  done 
immediately  after  the  Roths- 
childs had  floated  a  rather  large  and  risky  loan  for  his 
Kingship.  This  is  irrelevant,  inconsequential,  and  outside 
the  issue.  That  the  house  of  Rothschild  with  its  branches 
had  an  open  sesame  upon  the  purse-strings  of  Europe  for 
half  a  century,  is  a  fact.  Nations  in  need  of  cash  had  to 
apply  to  the  Rothschilds.  The  Rothschilds  did  n't  loan  them 
the  money — they  merely  looked  after  the  details  of  the 
loan,  and  guaranteed  the  lender  that  the  interest  would 
not  be  defaulted.  Their  agencies  everywhere  were  in  touch 
with  investors.  The  nobility  are  a  timid  sort — they  like  to 
invest  their  hard-earned  savings  outside  of  their  bailiwick 
— nobody  knows  what  will  happen ! 

The  Rothschilds  would  not  float  a  loan  until  they  were 
assured  that  the  premises  were  not  mortgaged.  More  than 
this,  there  was  a  superstition  all  'round  that  they  were  backed 
up  by  J.  Bull,  and  J.  Bull  is  a  close  collector. 
The  Rothschilds  made  government  loans  popular — before 
this,  kings  got  their  cash  mostly  by  coercion. 
For  their  services  the  Rothschilds  asked  only  the  most  modest 
fee — a  fee  so  small  it  was  absurd — a  sixteenth  of  one  per 
cent,  or  something  like  that. 

135 


MAYER  A.  The  bonds  were  issued  and  offered  at  par.   If  they  would 
ROTHSCHILD  not  sell  at  par,  they  were  placed  on  'Change  and  sold  at 
what  they  would  bring. 

What  was  n't  taken  by  the  public,  brought,  oh,  say  around 
seventy-five.  Unkind  people  say  the  Rothschilds  beared  all 
bonds  which  they,  themselves,  desired  to  buy.  Concerning 
this  I  am  not  competent  to  speak.  It  was  n't  their  fault  if 
Leopold's  credit  was  bad — mein  Gott  im  Himmel! 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  only  one  Government  in  the  world,  at 
some  time  or  other  from  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifteen  to 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Seventy,  never  courted  the  Roths- 
childs with**  intentions."  ^America  never  quite  forgot,  nor 
forgave,  that  Hessian  incident,  and  the  Rothschilds  were 
never  asked  for  favors  by  your  Uncle  Samuel. 
There  were  four  generations  of  the  Rothschilds  among 
whom  there  have  been  very  able  men.  This  beats  the  rule 
by  three  generations,  and  the  record  by  one. 
The  Frankfort  House  of  Rothschild  was  dissolved  in 
Nineteen  Hundred  and  One.  The  London  firm  still  continues, 
but  I  am  advised  by  John  D.  Rockefeller,  J.  Pierpont  Morgan 
and  James  J.  Hill  that  the  Rothschilds,  while  interesting 
in  an  historic  way,  are  no  longer  looked  upon  as  a  world 
power.  ^Letizia,  the  mother  of  ten,  is  worthy  of  more 
space  than  I  am  able  here  to  give  her  ^  There  are  those 
who  say  she  was  the  real  founder  of  the  House  of  Roths- 
child. She  died  aged  exactly  one  hundred,  in  the  Red 
Shield,  where  she  was  married  and  where  all  of  her 
children  were  bom.  ^She  outlived  the  fall  of  Napoleon 
just  forty  years.  She  had  a  fine  and  pardonable  pride  in 
her  kingly  sons.  ^  Politics  and  world  problems  interested 
her.   She  was  sane  and  sensible  and  happy  to  the  last. 


LITTLE   JOURNEYS 

by  Elbert  Hubbard  in  Booklet  Form- 
Frontispiece  Portrait  of  Each  Subject. 


Frederick  Chopin 
Felix  Mendelssohn 
Samuel  Coleridge 
Benjamin  Disraeli 
Mark  Antony 
Whistler 
Pericles 
Savonarola 
John  Wesley 
Henry  George 
Thomas  Paine 
Richard  Cobden 
John  Knox 
Garibaldi 
John  Bright 
Robert  Owen 


Charles  Bradlaugh 

Theodore  Parker 

Oliver  Cromwell 

Anne  Hutchinson 

Jean  Rousseau 

Moses 

Confucius 

Pythagoras 

Plato 

King  Alfred 

Friedrich  Froebel 

Booker  Washington 

Thomas  Arnold 

Erasmus 

Hypatia 

Mary  Baker  Eddy 


The  Price  is  TEN  CENTS  Each,  or  One  Dollar 
for  Ten — as  long  as  they  last. 

THE    ROYCROFTERS 

East    Aurora,    Erie    County,    New    York 


THE  ROYCROFTERS 

EAST  AURORA,  ERIE  COUNTY,  NEW  YORK 

FRIENDS  :- 

I  enclose  Two  Dollars  to  pay  for  a  yearly 
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CHECK    YOUR    CHOICE.    One  of  these  beautiful 
Roycroft  books,   gratis,   with   every   subscription  for 

THE  FRA  MAGAZINE 

HEALTH  AND  WEALTH    ....    ^Hubbard 

The  Broncho  Book    -    -----    Capt.  Jack  Crawford 

Woman's  Work      --------    Alice  Hubbard 

Battle  of  Waterloo      - -       Victor  Hugo 

White  Hyacinths -  Elbert  Hubbard 

The  Rubaiyat     ---------     Omar  Khayyam 

A  William  Morris  Book    -    -    -       Hubbard  and  Thomson 
Crimes  against  Criminals     -    -    -    -     Robert  G.  Ingersoll 

A  Christmas  Carol   --------   Charles  Dickens 

The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol     -----      Oscar  Wilde 

Justinian  and  Theodora      -    -      Elbert  and  Alice  Hubbard 
BOUND  VOL.  LITTLE  JOURNEYS     -     Hubbard 


LITTLE    JOURNEYS 

FIFTEENTH  YEAR 

OR  Nineteen  Hundred  and  Nine,  Little  Journeys 
by  Elbert  Hubbard  will  be  to  the  homes  of  Great 
Business  Men.  Mr.  Hubbard  has  been  farm-hand, 
office  boy,  printer's  devil,  foreman,  editor,  mana- 
ger, proprietor.  He  is  an  economist  himself — an  economist 
of  time,  money  and  materials.  Mr.  Hubbard  is  a  Farmer ; 
he  also  operates  a  Bank,  a  Hotel,  a  Printing-shop,  a  Book- 
bindery  and  a  Guinea-hen  Garage. 

SUBJECTS   OF    LITTLE    JOURNEYS   FOR    1909 

ROBERT  OWEN  H.  J.  HEINZ  JOHN  JACOB  ASTOR 

JAMES  OLIVER  PHILIP  D.  ARMOUR      AUGUST  SCHILLING 

STEPHEN  GIRARD  MAYER  ROTHSCHILD  JOHN  WANAMAKER 

ALBERT  A.  POPE  JAMES  J.  HILL  ANDREW  CARNEGIE 

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I  am  a  writing  man  and  I  know  the  difficulties  of  the  craft ;  and  I  say  that' 
Elbert  Hubbard  is  the  greatest  writer — vocabulary  and  range  of  ideas  consid- 
ered— that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  ancient  or  modern. — ROBERT  BARR 
Young  writers  intent  on  style  can  not  do  better  than  read  Elbert  Hubbard. 
He  says  big  things  in  tabloid.—ALFRED  HENRY  LEWIS 
Elbert  Hubbard  is  the  only  man  in  America  who  has  the  English  language 
firmly  by  the  tail.— JOAQUIN  MILLER 

We  are  not  surprised  that  Elbert  Hubbard's  Little  Journeys  are  being  introduced 
into  our  High  Schools  as  text  books.  Fra  Elbertus  writes  as  he  feels  and  he  usually 
feels  right.  He  is  more  interested  in  life  than  in  literature ;  he  is  so  full  of  his 
subject  that  he  radiates  it.  And  if  he  occasionally  walks  all  over  oiu*  old-time 
rules  of  rhetoric,  we  are  the  gainers.  Many  a  book  has  been  regarded  as 
profound  when  it  was  only  stupid.  In  his  writing,  Elbert  Hubbard  is  as  vivid 
as  Victor  Hugo,  as  rippling  as  Heinrich  Heine,  as  tender  as  Jean  Paul ;  and 
we  must  remember  that  the  chief  charge  brought  against  all  of  these  men  was 
that  they  were  interesting.  Nowadays  we  do  not  consider  dullness  a  virtue.  We 
shun  the  turgid  and  lugubrious.  We  ask  for  life.— CHICAGO  INTER-OCEAN 


Books  by  Elbert  Hubbard 

Respectability     -            -            -            -  -        $  2.00 

The  Man  of  Sorrows               -             -             -  2*00 

Love,  Life  and  Work     -            -            -  -            2.00 

White  Hyacinths       -            _            .            .  "         2.00 

Health  and  Wealth         -            -            -  -            2.00 
Time  and  Chance — A  Narrative  Life  of  John  Brown ; 

850  pages,  in  limp  leather,  silk  lined  -             2. 50 

No  Enemy  But  Himself        -            -            -  1.25 

The  following  LITTLE  JOURNEYS  are  on  hand-made  paper,  hand  illumined, 
limp  leath^,  silk  lined,  illustrated,  a  very  beautiful  book  (some  folks  think) 

Little  JoimNEYS  to  Homes  of  Good  Men  and  Great  $  3. 00 

'American  Authors     -            -            -            -  3.00 

Famous  Women              -            -            -  -             3.00 

American  Statesmen              -            -            -  3.00 

Eminent  Painters            -            -            -  -            3.00 

English  Authors,  Book  1       -            -            -  3.00 

English  Authors,  Book  II           -            -  -            3.00 

Great  Musicians,  Book  I       -            -            -  3.00 

Great  Musicians,  Book  II           -            -  -            8.00 

Eminent  Artists,  Book  I       -            -            -  3.00 

Eminent  Artists,  Book  II           -            -  -            8.00 

Eminent  Orators,  Book  I      -            -            -  8.00 

Eminent  Orators,  Book  II          -            -  -            8.00 

Great  Philosophers,  Book  I                .            -  s.oo 

Great  Philosophers,  Book  II      -            -  -            8.00 

Great  Scientists,  Book  I        -            -            -  8.00 

Great  Scientists,  Book  II            -            -  -            8.00 

Great  Lovers,  Book  I            -            -            -  3.00 

Great  Lovers,  Book  II                -            -  -            8.00 

Great  Reformers,  Book  I      -             -             -  8.00 

Great  Reformers,  Book  II          -             -  -             8.00 

Great  Teachers,  Book  I         -  8.00 

Great  Teachers,  Book  II             -            -  -            3.00 

THE    ROYCROFTERS,   East  Aurora,  New  York 


OTHIN  G  IS  mote 


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Faithfulness  and  Truth  aie  trie 
most  Sacred  Excellences  and 
Endowments   of   the  Humkh 


Mind.— G/cero 


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RUST  MEN 
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YOU;  TREAT  THEM 
GREATLY  AND  THEY 
WILL  SHOW  THEM- 


SELVES GREAT.-£.e 


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Vol.  24 


MAY,   MCMIX 


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ANKIND  are 
more  indebted 
tolndustry 
than  Ingenui- 
ty; the  gods  set  up  their 
favors  at  a  price,  and 
Industry  is  the  purchaser 

ADDISON 


Entered  at  the  postoffice  at  East  Aurora.  New  York,  for  transmission  as  second^Iass  matter 
Copyright,  1908,  by  Elbert  Hubbard,  Editor  and  Publisher 


THE  ANNUAL  ROYCROFT 

CONVENTION 

occurs  at  East  Aurora,  Erie  County,  New  York, 
July  First  to  Tenth,  Nineteen  Hundred  and 
Nine,  inclusive.  On  this  very  pleasant  occasion 
there  will  be  present  many  men  and  women 
of  quality;  honest,  simple,  sincere  and  friendly 
folks  who  have  thoughts  and  know  how  to 
express  them.  §The  Musical  Events  provided 
this  year  are  the  best  we  have  ever  had — which 
is  saying  much.  Two  Formal  Programs  daily, 
with  walks  and  talks  afield,  betimes,  and  much 
good=fellowship  and  flow  of  soul.  To  guests 
at  The  Roycroft  Inn  there  is  no  charge  for 
admittance  to  any  of  our  classes,  lectures  or 
entertainments.  §You  are  invited  to  be 
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THE      ROYCROFTERS 

EAST  AURORA,  ERIE  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


Summer  Advertisers 

[AST  AURORA  will  hold  five  Con- 
ventions this  Summer.  Starting  with 
the  Socialists,  and  ending  with  the 
Merry  Musicians,  throngs  of  the 
Intellectually  Elect  will  commune 
during  the  hot  months,  'neath  the  shelter  of 
the  Home  Peristyle   :fi;fi:fi:f::fi;fi^:fi:fi 

q  SOCIALISTIC    CONVENTION  —  June 

Twentieth  to  Thirtieth. 
Q  ROYCROFT  CONVENTION-July  First 

to  Tenth. 
QNEW  THOUGHT  CONVENTION— 

August  First  to  Tenth. 
Q  WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  CONVENTION 

— August  Twelfth  to  Twentieth. 
q  MUSICAL     CONGRESS— August 

Twenty=third  to  September  First. 

This  then  would  seem  to  be  a  splendid  season  for  Wise 
Advertisers  to  approach  with  a  Good  Proposition  people 
whose  convolutions  are  not  corroded.  QSuch  Folks  lend 
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on  the  Spot.  Its  Advertising  Pages  are  Open  to  all  (and 
only)  High-Grade  Advertisers  ^^^^jt^Jijt 

WRITE    TODAY     FOR    RATE     CARD     AND     VIBRATIONS 

THE   FRA    Advertising   Department 

EAST  AURORA.  ERIE  COUNTY.  NEW  YORK 


PHILIP     D.     ARMOUR 


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TO  THF  HOME9  OR 


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BY  ELBERT 


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BOOK-BY-THB 


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aaN//HKH-l9-ingjZSl)Z 


ANYBODY  can  cut  prices,  but  it 
takes  brains  to  make  a  better 
article. — Philip  D.  Armour. 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 


HILIP  ARMOUR  was  bom  on  May 
Sixteenth,  Eighteen  Hundred  and 
Thirty-two,  near  the  little  village 
of  Stockbridge,  New  York.  He  died 
at  Chicago,  January  Sixth,  Nine- 
teen Hundred  and  One  ^  The 
farm  owned  by  his  father  was 
right  on  the  line  between  Madison 
and  Oneida  Counties.  The  boys 
used  to  make  a  scratch  in  the  road 
and  dare  the  boys  from  Madison 
to  come  across  in  Oneida.  The 
Armour  farm  adjoined  the  land 
of  the  famous  Oneida  Community, 
where  was  worked  out  one  of  the  most  famous  social 
experiments  ever  attempted  in  the  history  of  civilization. 
However,  the  Armour  family  constituted  a  little  community 
of  its  own,  and  was  never  induced  to  abandon  family  life 
for  the  group.  Yet  for  John  Humphrey  Noyes,  Danforth 
Armour  5ways  had  great  respect.  But  he  was  philosopher 
enough  to  know  that  one  generation  would  wind  up  the 
scheme,  for  the  young  would  all  desert,  secrete  millinery 
and  mate  as  young  men  and  maidens  have  done  since  time 
began.  **  Oneida  is  for  those  whose  dream  did  not  come 
true — mine  has,"  he  said. 

The  Armours  of  Stockbridge  traced  a  pedigree  to  Jean  Armour, 
of  Ayr,  brown  as  a  berry,  pink  and  twenty,  sweet  and  thrifty, 
beloved  of  Bobby  Burns. 

The  father  of  Philip  was  Danforth  Armour  and  the  father 
of  Danforth  Armour  was  James  Armour,  Puritan,  who 
emigrated  from  the  north  of  Ireland  jt  James  settled  in 
Connecticut  and  fortified  his  Scotch-Irish  virtues  with  a 
goodly  mixture  of  the  New  England  genius  for  hard  work, 
economy  and  religion.  His  grandfather  had  fought  side  by 
side  with  Oliver  Cromwell  and  had  gone  into  battle  with  that 
doughty  hero  singing  the  songs  of  Zion.  He  was  a  Congrega- 
tionalist  by  prenatal  influence  ^  And  I  need  not  here 
explain  that  the  love  of  freedom  fotmd  form  in  Congrega- 
tionalism, a  religious  denomination  without  a  pope,  and 
without  a  bishop,  where  one  congregation  was  never  dictated 
to  nor  ruled  by  any  other.  Each  congregation  was  complete 

137 


PHILIP  D.  [n  itself — or  was  supposed  to  be.  ^This  love  of  liberty  was 
ARMOUR  the  direct  inheritance  of  James  Armour.  It  descended  to 
Danforth  Armour  and  by  him  was  passed  along  to  Philip 
Danforth  Armour.  All  of  these  men  had  a  very  sturdy  pride 
of  ancestry,  masked  by  modesty,  which  oft  reiterated,  **0h, 
pedigree  is  nothing — it  all  lies  in  the  man.  You  do  or  else 
you  don't.  To  your  quilting,  girls — to  your  quilting  I " 
When  Nancy  Brooks  was  beloved  by  Danforth  Armour  the 
fates  were  propitious.  The  first  women  school-teachers  in 
America  evolved  in  Connecticut.  Miss  Brooks  was  a  school- 
teacher, the  daughter  of  a  farmer  for  whom  Danforth  Armour 
worked  as  a  hired  man. 

Danforth  was  given  to  boasting  a  bit,  as  to  the  part  his 
ancestors  had  played  as  neighbors  to  Oliver  Cromwell,  at 
the  time,  and  the  only  time,  when  England  was  a  republic. 
Q|Miss  Brooks  did  not  like  this  kind  of  talk  and  told  the 
young  man  so  straight  at  his  red  head.  The  Brooks  family 
was  ^otch,  too,  but  they  had  fought  on  the  side  of  Royalty. 
They  were  never  rebels — they  were  true  to  the  King — exactly 
80 1  QNow  there  are  two  kinds  of  Scotch — the  fair  and  the  dark 
— the  Highland  and  the  Lowland — the  Aristocrats  and  the 
Peasantry.  Miss  Brooks  was  dark,  and  she  succeeded  in 
convincing  the  freckled  and  sandy-haired  man  that  he  was 
of  a  race  of  rebels,  also  that  the  rule  of  the  rebels  was  brief, 
brief,  my  lord,  as  woman's  love.  Then  they  argued  as  to  the 
alleged  brevity  of  woman's  love.  ^  Here  they  were  getting  on 
dangerous  ground.  Nature  is  a  trickster,  and  she  spread  her 
net  and  caught  the  Highland  maid  and  the  Lowland  laddie, 
and  bound  them  as  with  green  withes  as  is  her  wont.  So  they 
were  married  by  the  Congregational  "meenister,"  and  for  a 
wedding  tour  fared  forth  westward  to  fame  and  fortune.  **Out 
West "  then  meant  York  State,  and  the  *  *  Far  West "  was  Ohio. 
They  reached  Oneida  County,  New  York,  and  stopped  for 
a  few  days  ere  they  pushed  on  to  the  frontier.  The  site  was 
beautiful,  the  location  favorable.  And  the  farmer  at  whose 
house  they  were  making  their  stay  was  restless  and  wanted 
to  sell  out.  ^  That  night  the  young  couple  talked  it  over.  They 
liad  a  few  hundred  dollars  saved,  sewed  in  a  belt  and  in  a  dress 
bodice.They  got  the  money  out  and  recounted  it.  In  the  morning 
they  told  their  host  how  much  money  they  had  and  offered 
to  give  him  all  of  this  money  for  his  farm.  He  was  to  leave 
them  a  yoke  of  oxen,  a  cow,  a  pig  and  six  sheep.QHe  accepted 
the  offer,  the  money  was  paid,  the  deed  made  out  and  the  man 
138 


vacated,  leaving  the  bride  and  groom  in  possession.  So  here 
they  lived  their  lives;  here  they  worked,  planned,  aspired, 
prospered;  here  their  children  were  born  and  raised;  and 
down  at  the  village  cemetery  they  sleep,  side  by  side.  In  life 
they  were  never  separated  and  in  death  they  are  not  divided. 


PHILIP  D, 
ARMOUR 


HE  first  requisite  in  education," 
said  Herbert  Spencer,  "is  that  man 
shall  be  a  good  animal." 
Philip  D.  Armour  fulfilled  the  re- 
quirements. He  was  dowered  with 
a  vital  power  that  fed  his  restless 
brain  and  made  him  a  dynamo  of 
energy  for  sixty-nine  years — and 
with  a  little  care  at  the  last  should 
have  run  for  ninety  years  with 
never  a  hot  box. 

He  used  to  say,  "If  my  ancestors 
had  been  selected  for  me  by  Greek 
philosophers,  specialists  in  heredity, 
they  could  not  have  done  better.  I  caimot  imagine  a  better 
woman  than  my  mother.  My  childhood  was  ideal.  God  did 
not  overlook  me. "  ^  Well  did  this  happy,  exuberant,  healthy 
man  say  that  his  parentage  and  childhood  environment  were 
ideal.  Here  was  a  family  of  six  boys  and  three  girls,  brought 
up  on  a  beautiful  hillside  farm  amid  as  peaceful  and  lovely  a 
landscape  as  ever  the  sun  shone  upon.  Down  across  the  creek 
there  were  a  hundred  acres  of  bottom-land  that  always  laughed 
a  harvest  under  the  skilful  management  of  Danforth  Armour. 
Yet  the  market  for  surplus  products  was  distant,  so  luxury 
and  leisure  were  out  of  the  question.  And  yet  work  was  n't 
drudgery.  Woods,  hills,  running  streams,  the  open  road,  the 
sawmill  and  the  grist-mill,  the  path  across  the  meadow, — 
the  miracle  of  the  seasons,  the  sugar-bush,  the  freshet  that 
carried  away  the  bridge,  the  first  spring  flowers  peeping 
from  beneath  the  snow  on  the  south  side  of  rotting  logs,  the 
trees  bursting  into  leaf,  the  hills  white  with  blossoms  of 
wild  cherry  and  hawthorn,  the  Saturday  afternoon  when 
the  boys  could  fish,  the  old  swimming  hole,  the  bathing  of 

139 


PHILIP  D.  *^®  ^^^^  o^®s  in  the  creek,  the  growing  crops  in  the  bottom- 
ARMOUR  l^Jid,  bee-trees  and  wild  honey,  coon  hunts  by  moonlight, 
the  tracks  of  deer  down  by  the  salt-lick,  bears  in  the  green 
corn,  harvest-time,  hog-killing  days,  frost  upon  the  pumpkin 
and  fodder  in  the  shock,  wild  turkeys  in  the  clearing,  revival 
meetings,  spelling-bees,  debates  at  the  schoolhouse,  school 
at  the  log  schoolhouse  in  Stockbridge,  barn  raisings,  dances 
in  the  new  barn,  quilting-bees,  steers  to  break,  colts  to  ride, 
apple  butter,  soft  soap,  pickled  pig's  feet,  smoked  hams,  side 
meat,  shelled  walnuts,  coonskins  on  the  barn  door,  winter 
and  the  first  fall  of  snow,  boots  to  grease,  harness  to  mend, 
backlogs,  hickory-nuts,  cider,  a  few  books  and  all  the  other 
wonderfiil  and  enchanting  things  that  a  country  life,  not  too 
isolated,  brings  to  the  boys  and  girls  born  where  the  rain 
makes  musical  patter  on  the  roof  and  the  hands  of  a  loving 
mother  tucks  you  in  at  night  I 

Here  was  a  mother  who  gave  to  the  world  six  sons,  five  of 
whom  grew  to  an  honored  manhood  and  proved  themselves 
men  of  power.  One  of  the  girls,  Marietta,  was  a  woman  of 
extraordinary  personality,  as  picturesquely  heroic  as  Philip 
Armour,  himself. 

This  mother  never  had  a  servant-girl,  a  laundress  or  a  dress- 
maker. The  manicure  and  the  beauty  doctor  were  still  in 
the  matrix  of  time,  as  yet  unguessed. 

On  Sunday  there  was  a  full  wagon-load  of  Armours,  big  and 
little,  to  go  to  the  Congregational  Church  at  Stockbridge.  Let 
us  hope  the  wagon  was  yellow  and  the  horses  grey. 
Do  not  imagine  that  a  family  like  this  is  lonely.  There  is 
constant  work;  the  day  is  packed  with  duties,  and  night 
comes  with  its  grateful  rest.  There  is  no  time  to  be  either 
bad  or  unhappy,  nor  is  there  leisure  to  reflect  on  your  virtues. 
No  one  line  of  thought  receives  enough  attention  to  disturb 
the  balance  of  things.  To  be  so  busy  that  you  **forget  it,"  is 
very  fortunate.  The  child  brought  up  with  a  happy  proportion 
of  play  and  responsibility,  of  work  and  freedom,  of  love  and 
discipline  has  surely  not  been  overlooked  by  Providence. 
The  **  problem  of  education, "  is  only  a  problem  to  the  super- 
latively wise  and  the  tremendously  great.  To  plain  people 
life  is  no  problem.  Things  become  complex  only  when  we 
worry  over  them. 
So  the  recipe  for  educating  children  is  this :  Educate  yourself. 


140 


HEN  Philip  Armour  was  nineteen  puiLIP  D. 
the  home  nest  seemed  crowded.  ARMOUR 
The  younger  brothers  were  coming 
along  to  do  the  work  and  the  ab- 
sence of  one  **will  be  one  less  to 
feed"  he  said  to  his  mother. 

W^^JIKj  The  gold-fields  of  California  were 
^pcr^  calling.  This  mother  was  too  sen- 
^k>Vj  sible  and  loving  to  allow  her  boy 
to  run  away — if  he  was  going,  he 
should  go  with  her  blessing.  She 
got  together  a  hundred  dollars  in 
cash.  With  this  and  a  pack  on  his 

back  Philip  started  on  foot  for  the 

land  of  Eldorado  jt  Four  men  were  in  the  party,  all  from 
Oneida  County. 

He  walked  all  the  way  and  arrived  on  schedule,  after  a 
six  months*  journey.  Philip  was  the  only  one  in  the  party 
who  did  not  grow  sick  nor  weary.  One  died,  two  turned  back, 
but  Philip  trudged  on  with  the  procession  that  seemed  to 
increase  as  it  neared  the  gold-fields. 

Arriving  in  California,  this  very  sensible  country  boy  figured 
it  out  that  mining  was  a  gamble.  A  very  few  grew  rich,  but 
the  many  were  desperately  poor.  Most  of  those  who  got  a 
little  money  ahead  spent  it  in  prospecting  for  bigger  finds 
and  soon  were  again  penniless.  He  decided  that  he  would  not 
bet  on  anything  but  his  own  ability.  Instead  of  digging  for 
gold,  he  set  to  work  digging  ditches  for  men  who  had  mines, 
but  no  water.  This  making  ditches  was  plain  labor,  without 
excitement,  chance  or  glamour.  You  knew  beforehand  just 
how  much  you  would  make.  Philip  was  strong  and  patient — 
he  could  work  from  sunrise  to  sunset. 
He  was  paid  five  dollars  a  day.  ^  Then  he  took  contracts  to 
dig  ditches  and  sometimes  he  made  ten  dollars  a  day.  Parties 
who  were  "busted"  and  wished  to  borrow  were  offered  a  job. 
He  set  them  to  work  and  paid  them  for  what  they  did,  and 
no  more.  It  was  all  a  question  of  mathematics.  In  five  years 
Philip  Armour  had  saved  eight  thousand  doUars.It  was  enough 
to  buy  the  best  farm  in  Oneida  County  and  this  was  all  he 
wanted.  There  was  a  girl  back  there  who  had  taunted  him 
and  dared  him  to  go  away  and  make  his  fortune.  They  parted 
in  a  tiff — that 's  the  way  she  got  rid  of  him.  There  was 
another  man  in  the  case,  but  Philip  was  too  innocent  to  know 

141 


PHILIP  D.  this.  The  peaceful  hills  of  New  York  lured  and  beckoned.  He 
ARMOUR  responded  to  the  call  and  started  back  home.  In  half  the  time 
it  took  to  go,  he  had  arrived.  But  alas,  the  hills  had  shrunken. 
The  mighty  stream  that  once  ran  through  Stockbridge  was 
but  a  rill.  ^  And  the  girl — the  girl  had  married  another — a 
worthy  horse-doctor.  ^  Philip  called  on  her.  She  was  yellow 
and  tired  and  had  two  fine  babies.  She  was  glad  to  see  her  old 
friend  Philip,  but  the  past  was  as  dead  to  her  as  the  present. 
In  her  hand-grasp  there  was  no  thrill.  She  had  given  him  a 
big  chase ;  and  soon  his  sadness  made  way  for  gratitude  in  that 
she  had  married  the  horse-doctor.  He  gave  them  his  blessing. 
Philip  looked  around  at  farms — several  were  for  sale,  but 
none  suited  him. 

On  the  way  back  from  California  he  had  traveled  by  way  of 
the  Great  Lakes  and  stopped  two  days  at  Milwaukee.  It  was 
a  fine  city — a  growing  place,  the  gateway  of  the  West  and 
the  market-place  where  the  vessels  loaded  for  the  East. 
^  Milwaukee  had  one  rival — Chicago,  eighty-five  miles  south 
— but  Chicago  was  on  low,  flat,  marshy  ground.  It  would 
always  be  a  city,  of  course,  because  it  was  the  end  of  navi- 
gation, but  Milwaukee  would  feed  and  stock  the  folks  who 
were  westward  bound.  So  to  Milwaukee  went  Philip  Armour, 
resolved  to  there  stake  his  fortune  in  trade  Jt,  Opportunity 
offered  and  he  joined  with  Fred  B.  Miles,  on  March  First, 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty-nine,  in  the  produce  and  com- 
mission business.  Each  man  put  in  five  hundred  dollars.  The 
business  prospered.  One  of  the  great  products  in  demand  was 
smoked  and  pickled  meats.  At  that  time  farmers  salted  and 
smoked  hams  and  brought  them  to  town,  with  furs,  pelts 
and  bags  of  wheat,  fl  All  the  tide  of  humanity  that  streamed 
into  Milwaukee,  westward  bound,  bought  smoked  or  pickled 
meats — something  that  would  keep  and  be  always  handy. 
fl  These  were  winter-packed.  The  largest  packer  was  John 
Plankinton,  who  was  a  success.  John  was  knowing,  and  he 
made  Phil.  Armour  his  junior  partner,  as  Plankinton  & 
Armour.  Then  business  sizzled.  They  were  at  the  plant  at 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning.  They  discovered  how  to  make 
a  hog  yield  four  hams.  Our  soldiers  needed  the  hams  and 
the  barreled  pork,  so  shortly  more  hogs  came  to  market. 
The  war's  end  found  the  new  firm  much  stronger  and  well 
stocked  with  large  orders  for  mess  pork,  sold  for  future 
delivery  at  war-time  prices,  which  contracts  they  filled  at 
a  much  lower  cost  and  to  their  financial  satisfaction.  Their 
142 


guesser  was  good  and  they  prospered.  ^Meantime,  the  city  PHILIP  D. 

of  Chicago  grew.  It  grew  faster  than  Milwaukee.  There  was  ARMOUR 

a  rich  country  south  of  Chicago,  as  well  as  west,  and  of  this 

Philip  Armour  had  really  never  thought.  Q  Chicago  was  a 

better    market  for    pickled   pork  and   corned   beef    than 

Milwaukee,  as  more  boats  fitted  out  there,  and  more  emigrants 

were  landing  on  their  way  to  take  up  government  land. 

flOne  of  Mr.  Armour's  brothers,  Joe,  was  a  packer  in  Chicago. 

Another  brother,  H.  O.,  was  in  the  commission  business 

there.  Joe's  health  was  bad,  so  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and 

Seventy,  Philip  Armour  came  to  Chicago,  and  shortly  the 

house  of  Armour  &   Company  came  into  being — H.  O. 

Armour  going  to  New  York  to  look  after  Eastern  trade  and 

financing.  In  those  days  branch  houses  were  unknown  and 

packing  house  products  were  handled  by  jobbers. 


HILIP  DANFORTH  ARMOUR  was 
the  Father  of  the  Packing  House 
Industry  ^  The  business  of  the 
Packing  House  Industry  is  to 
gather  up  the  food  products  of 
America  and  distribute  them  to 
the  world. 

Let  the  fact  here  be  stated  that 
the  world  is  better  fed  today  than 
it  ever  has  been  since  Herodotus 
sharpened  his  faber  and  began 
writing  history,  four  hundred  and 
fifty  years  before  Christ.  ^  In  this 
matter  of  food,  the  danger  today 
lies  in  overeating  and  not  in  lack  of  provender.  ^The  business 
of  Armour  &  Company  is  to  buy  from  the  producer  and 
distribute  to  the  consumer.  flSo  Armour  &  Company  have 
to  satisfy  two  parties — the  producer  and  the  consumer.  Both 
being  fairly  treated  have  a  perfect  right  to  grumble. 
The  buyer  of  things  which  Nature  forces  the  man  to  buy, 
is  usually  a  complainer,  and  he  complains  of  the  seller 
because  he  is  near,  just  as  a  man  kicks  the  cat  and  takes 
it  out  on  his  wife,  or  the  mother  scolds  the  children.  ^To  the 

143 


PHILIP  D.  farmers,  Armour  used  to  say  with  stunning  truth,  **You  get 
ARMOUR  more  for  your  produce  today  than  you  got  before  I  showed 
up  on  the  scene ;  and  you  get  your  money  on  the  minute, 
without  haggle  or  question.  I  furnish  you  an  instantaneous 
market. "flTo  the  consumer  he  said,  "I  supply  you  with 
regularity  and  I  give  you  quality  at  a  price  more  advan- 
tageous to  you  than  your  local  butcher  can  command.  My  profit 
lies  in  that  which  has  always  been  thrown  away.  As  for 
sanitation,  go  visit  your  village  slaughter-house  and  then 
come  and  see  the  way  I  do  it!" 

Upton  Sinclair  scored  two  big  points  on  Packingtown  and 
its  Boss  Ogre.  They  were  these:  First,  the  Ogre  hired  men 
and  paid  them  to  kill  animals.  Second,  these  dead  animals 
were  distributed  by  the  Ogre  and  his  minions  and  the  corpses 
eaten  by  men,  women  and  children.  ^  It  was  a  revolting 
revelation.  It  even  shook  the  nerves  of  a  President,  one  of  the 
killingest  men  in  the  world,  who,  not  finding  enough  things 
to  kill  in  America,  has  now  gone  to  Africa  to  kill  things, 
that  their  pelts  may  decorate  our  parlors. 
"You  live  on  the  dead,"  said  the  Eastern  pundit,  reproach- 
fully, out  of  his  yellow  turban,  to  the  American,  who  had 
just  ordered  a  ham  sandwich.  **And  you  eat  the  living," 
replied  the  American,  as  he  handed  a  little  hand  microscope 
to  the  pundit  and  asked  him  to  focus  it  upon  his  dinner  of  dried 
figs.The  pundit  looked  at  the  figs  through  the  glass,  and  behold, 
they  were  covered  with  crawling,  wiggling,  wriggling,  living 
life  I  And  then  did  the  man  from  the  East  throw  the  micro- 
scope out  of  the  window,  and  say,  "Now  there  are  no  bugs 
on  these  figs ! "  flThat  which  we  behold  too  closely  is  apt  to 
be  repulsive.  Fix  your  vision  upon  any  of  the  various  functions 
of  life  and  the  whole  thing  becomes  disgusting,  especially  so  if 
we  contemplate  the  details  of  existence  in  others.  Personally, 
of  course,  we,  ourselves  in  thought  and  action  are  sweet 
and  wholesome — but  the  others,  oh,  ah,  bah,  phew,  ouch 
or  words  to  that  effect! 

Armour's  remark  about  the  village  slaughter-house  was 
getting  close  home.  If  bad  meat  was  ever  put  out,  it  was 
from  these  secret  places,  managed  by  one  or  two  men  who 
did  things  in  their  own  sweet  way.  Their  work  was  not 
inspected.  They  themselves  were  the  sole  judges.  There  were 
not  even  employees  to  see  and  blackmail  them  if  they  failed 
to  walk  the  chalk-line.  They  bought  up  cattle,  drove  them 
in  at  night  and  killed  them.  No  effort  was  made  to  utilize 
144 


the  blood  or  offal  and  this  putrifying  mass  advertised  itself  PHILIP  D, 
for  miles.  Savage  dogs  and  slaughter-houses  go  together,  ARMOUR 
as  all  villagers  know,  and  there  were  various  good  reasons 
why  visitors  did  n*t  go  to  see  the  local  butcher  perform  his 
pleasing  obligations.  ^  The  first  slaughter-houses  in  Chicago 
were  just  like  those  in  any  village.  They  supplied  the  local 
market.  ^  At  first  the  offal  was  simply  flung  out  in  a  pile. 
Then,  when  neighbors  complained,  holes  were  dug  in  the 
prairie  and  the  by-product  buried.  ^  About  Eighteen  Hundred 
and  Eighty-two,  a  decided  change  in  methods  occurred.  The 
first  thing  done  was  to  dry  the  blood,  bones  and  meat  scrap, 
and  sell  this  for  fertilizer.  Next  came  the  scientific  treatment 
of  the  waste  for  glues  and  other  products.  Chemists  were 
given  a  hearing,  patient  and  most  courteous.  flOne  day 
Armour  beckoned  C.  H.  MacDowell  into  his  private  office  and 
said  confidentially — **I  say,  Mac,  if  a  man  calls  who  looks 
like  a  genius  or  a  fool,  wearing  long  hair,  whiskers  and 
spectacles,  treat  him  gently — he  's  a  German  and  may  have 
something  in  his  head  beside  dandruff. "  ^  MacDowell  is  one 
of  the  big  boys  at  Armour's.  He  was  a  stenographer,  like  my 
old  Bryant  &  Stratton  chum,  Cortelyou,  and  in  fact  is  very 
much  such  a  man  as  Cortelyou.  **Mac"  is  the  head  of  the 
Armour  Fertilizer  Works  and  is  distressed  because  he  can't 
utilize  the  squeal — so  much  energy  evaporating.  It  is  his 
business  to  capitalize  waste.  ^  It  was  the  joke  of  the  place 
that  if  a  German  chemist  arrived,  all  business  was  paralyzed 
until  his  secret  was  seized.  Jena,  Gottingen  and  Heidelberg 
became  names  to  conjure  with.  Buttons  were  made  from 
bones,  glue  from  feet,  combs  and  ornaments  from  horns, 
curled  hair  from  tails,  felt  from  wool,  hair  was  cured  for 
plaster,  and  the  Armour  Fertilizer  Works  slowly  became 
grounded  and  founded  on  a  scientific  basis,  where  reliable 
advice  as  to  growing  cotton,  rice,  yams,  potatoes,  roses  or 
violets  could  be  had.  ^**Meat"  is  the  farmers'  product.  This 
meat  is  consumed  by  the  people.  One-half  of  our  population 
are  farmers  and  all  farmers  raise  cattle,  sheep,  poultry  and 
hogs.  Trade  follows  the  line  of  least  resistance;  and  the 
natural  thing  is  for  the  local  butcher  to  slaughter,  and  supply 
his  neighborhood.  Q  There  is  only  one  reason  why  the  people 
in  East  Aurora  should  buy  meat  of  Armour,  as  they 
occasionally  do,  and  that  is  because  Armour  supplies  better 
meat  at  a  lower  price  than  we  can  produce  it.  If  Armour  is 
higher  in  price  than  our  local  butcher,  we  buy  of  the  local 

145 


PHILIP  D.  man.  The  local  butcher  fixes  the  price,  not  Armour,  and  the 
ARMOUR  local  farmer  fixes  the  price  for  the  local  butcher.  Armour 
always  and  forever  has  to  face  this  local  competition.  q**I  am 
in  partnership  with  the  farmer, "  Philip  Armour  used  to  say. 
"Their  interests  are  mine  and  their  confidence  and  good-will 
I  must  merit,  or  over  goes  my  calabash. "  ^  The  success  of 
capital  lies  in  ministering  to  the  people,  not  in  taking 
advantage  of  them.  §  And  every  successful  business  house 
is  built  on  the  bed-rock  of  Reciprocity,  Mutuality  and  Co- 
operation. That  legal  Latin  maxim,  **Let  the  buyer  beware, " 
is  a  legal  fiction.  It  should  read,  "Let  the  seller  beware,"  for 
he  who  is  intent  on  selling  the  people  a  different  article  than 
that  which  they  want,  or  at  a  price  beyond  its  value,  will  stay  in 
trade  about  as  long  as  that  famous  snowball  will  last  in  Biloxi. 


ESIDES  being  the  father  of  the 
Packing  House  Industry,  Philip 
D.  Armour  was  a  manufacturer 
of  and  a  dealer  in  Portable  Wis- 
dom. His  teeming  brain  took  in 
raw  suggestions  and  threw  off  the 
completed  product  in  the  form  of 
epigrams,  phrases,  orphics,  sym- 
bols. To  have  caught  these  crumbs 
of  truth  that  fell  from  the  rich 
man's  table,  might  have  placed 
many  a  penny-a-liner  beyond  the 
reach  of  mental  avarice.  flOne 
man,  indeed,  swept  up  the  crumbs 
into  a  book  that  is  not  half  crumby.  The  man  is  George 
Horace  Lorimer  and  his  book  is  called,  "Letters  of  a  Self- 
made  Merchant  to  his  Son." 

Lorimer  was  a  department  manager  for  Armour  and  busied 
himself,  it  seems,  a  good  deal  of  the  time,  in  taking  down 
disjecta,  or  the  by-product  of  business.  Armour  was  always 
sincere,  but  seldom  serious.  There  is  a  lot  of  quiet  fun  yet 
among  the  Armour  folks.  When  the  Big  Boys  dine  daily 
together,  they  always  pass  the  persifiage.  Lorimer  showed 
me  a  bushel  of  notes — with  which  he  proposes  some  day 

146 


to  Boswellize  his  former  Chief.  Incidentally,  he  requested    PHILIP  D. 
me  to  never  mention  it,  but  secrets  being  to  give  away,  I    ARMOUR  ' 
state  the  fact  here,  in  order  to  help  along  a  virtuous  and 
hard-working  young  man,  the  son  of  Rev.  Dr.  George  C. 
Lorimer,  a  worthy  Baptist  preacher. 

"Keep  at  it, — do  not  be  discouraged,  Melville,  a  preacher's 
son  is  usually  an  improvement  on  the  sire,"  said  Philip  D. 
Armour  to  Melville  Stone,  who  was  born  at  Hudson,  McLean 
County,  Illinois,  the  son  of  a  Presiding  Elder. 
**I  'm  not  worrying,"  replied  the  genealogical  Stone,  "You 
and  I  were  both  born  in  log  houses,  which  puts  us  straight 
in  line  for  the  Presidency."  q "Right  you  are,  Melville,  for  a 
log  house  is  built  on  the  earth,  and  not  in  the  clouds. " 
Then  this  came  to  Armour,  and  he  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  to  fire  it,  "Boys,  all  buildings  that  really  endure 
are  built  from  the  ground  up,  never  from  the  clouds  down." 
^  No  living  man  ever  handed  out  more  gratuitous  advice  than 
Philip  Armour.  He  was  the  greatest  preacher  in  Chicago. 
With  every  transaction,  he  passed  out  a  premium  in  way  of 
palaver  ^  He  loved  the  bustle  of  business,  but  into  the 
business  he  butted  a  lot  of  talk — helpful,  good-natured, 
kindly,  paternal  talk,  and  often  there  was  a  suspicion  that 
he  talked  for  the  same  reason  that  prize-fighters  spar  for  time. 
^"Here,  Robbins,  get  off  this  telegram,  and  remember  that 
if  the  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss,  it  at  least  acquires  a 
bit  of  polish."  ^  "Say — Urion,  if  you  make  a  success  as  my 
lawyer  you  have  got  to  get  into  the  rings  of  Orion — be  there 
yourself,  the  same  as  the  man  that 's  ^to  be  hung.  You  can't 
send  a  substitute." 

To  Comes — now  Secretary  of  Armour  &  Company — "I 
suppose  if  I  told  you  to  jump  in  the  lake  you  'd  do  it.  Use 
your  head,  young  man — use  your  sky-piece  I "  And  he  did. 
^  This  preaching  habit  was  never  pedantic,  stiff  or  formal — 
it  gushed  out  as  the  waters  gushed  forth  from  the  rock  after 
Moses  had  given  it  a  few  stiff  raps  with  his  staff. 
Armour  called  people  by  their  first  names  as  if  they  all 
belonged  to  his  family,  as  they  really  did,  for  all  mankind 
to  him  were  one.  He  thought  in  millions,  where  other  big 
men  thought  in  hundreds  of  thousands,  or  average  men 
thought  in  dozens.  "Hiram,"  he  once  said  to  Rev.  Hiram 
W.  Thomas,  for  when  he  met  you,  you  imagined  he  had 
been  looking  for  you  to  tell  you  something;  "Hiram,  I  like 
to  hear  you  preach,  for  you  are  so  deliberate,  that  as  you 

147 


PHILIP  D.  speak  I  am  laying  bets  with  myself  as  to  which  of  a  dozen 
ARMOUR  things  you  are  going  to  say.  You  supply  me  lots  of  fun.  I 
can  travel  around  the  world  before  you  get  to  your  firstly." 
^  For  all  preachers  he  had  a  great  attraction,  and  it  was  n't 
solely  because  he  was  a  rich  man.  He  supplied  texts,  and  he 
supplied  voltage.  Most  men  put  on  a  pious  manner  and 
become  hypocritically  proper  when  a  preacher  joins  a  group, 
but  not  so  Philip  Armour.  If  he  used  a  strong  word,  or  a 
simile  uncurried,  it  was  then.  They  liked  it. 
**Mr.  Armour,  you  might  use  a  little  of  your  language  for 
fertilizer,  if  times  were  hard, "  once  said  Robert  Collyer. 
And  the  answer  was,  "Robert,  I  *m  fertilizing  a  few  of  your 
fallow  acres  now,  as  any  one  who  goes  to  hear  you  preach 
next  Sunday  will  find  out,  if  they  know  me. " 
A  committee  of  four  preachers  once  came  to  him  from  a 
country  town  a  few  miles  out  of  Chicago,  asking  him  to 
pay  off  the  debt  on  their  churches.  It  seems  they  had  heard 
of  the  Armour  benevolence  and  decided  to  beard  the  lion 
in  his  den.  He  listened  to  the  plea,  and  then  figured  up  on 
a  pad  the  amount  of  the  debts.  It  was  fifteen  hundred  dollars. 
The  preachers  were  encouraged — they  had  the  ejaculation, 
"God  bless  you!"  on  tap,  when  Mr.  Armour  said,  "Gentle- 
men, four  churches  in  a  town  the  size  of  yours  are  too  many. 
Now,  if  you  will  consolidate  and  three  of  you  will  resign  and 
go  to  farming,  I  *11  pay  off  this  debt  now. " 
The  offer  was  not  accepted. 

When  Armour  was  asked  to  subscribe  one  thousand  dollars 
to  a  fund  to  provide  an  auditorium  and  keep  Prof.  Swing 
in  Chicago,  Swing  having  just  been  tried  for  heresy,  he  said, 
"Chicago  must  not  lose  Swing — we  need  him.  If  I  had  a 
few  of  his  qualities,  and  he  had  a  few  of  mine,  there  would 
be  two  better  men  in  Chicago  today.  Yes,  we  must  keep 
Swing  right  here.  Put  me  down  for  a  thousand.  I  don't 
always  understand  what  Swing  is  driving  at,  but  that  may 
'  be  my  fault.  And  say,  if  you  find  you  need  five  thousand 
from  me,  just  let  me  know,  and  the  money  is  yours. " 
There  is  no  use  trying  to  work  the  apotheosis  of  Philip  D. 
Armour:  he  was  in  good  sooth  a  man.  "I  make  mistakes — 
but  I  do  not  respond  to  encores,"  he  used  to  say.  When  a 
man  told  of  spending  five  thousand  dollars  on  the  education 
of  his  son.  Armour  condoled  with  him  thus,  "Oh,  never  mind, 
he  '11  come  out  all  right — my  education  is  costing  me  that 
inuch  every  week. "  ^  Philip  Armour  was  a  very  human 
148 


individual.  He  liked  to  play  the  big  and  magnanimous, —  PHILIP  D. 
to  give  an  elevator  boy  a  dollar,  or  surprise  a  clerk  by  a  ARMOUR 
saying  he  always  had  in  electrotype,  to  wit:  "Keep  the 
change. "  Often  he  would  walk  six  blocks  to  save  street-car 
fare,  and  on  the  way,  hand  a  crossing  sweeper  fifty  cents. 
Apple  women  were  his  protegees,  and  when  newspapers  came 
down  to  three  cents  and  finally  one,  he  always  paid  the  boy 
five  cents,  and  said,  "Be  honest,  sonny,  be  industrious,  be 
saving  and  you  *11  win. "  §One  of  the  Big  Boys  at  Armour's 
is  a  character  called  **  Alibi  Tom."  Time  has  tamed  Alibi, 
but  when  he  was  twenty-two — well,  he  was  twenty-two. 
flNow  Philip  Armour  was  an  early  riser,  and  at  seven  o'clock 
he  used  to  be  at  the  office  ready  for  business,  the  office 
opening  at  eight.  Sometimes  he  would  come  even  earlier,  and 
if  he  saw  a  clerk  at  work  before  eight,  he  might,  under  the 
inspiring  spell  of  the  brisk  early  morning  walk,  step  over 
and  give  the  fellow  a  five-dollar  bill. 

Well,  Alibi  had  never  gotten  one  of  those  five-dollar  bills, 
because  he  was  usually  in  just  before  St.  Peter  closed  the 
gate.  Several  times  he  had  been  reproved,  and  once  Mr. 
Armour  had  said,  "Tom,  be  late  once  more  and  you  are 
a  has-wazzer. "  ^  Shortly  after  this,  one  night.  Alibi  Tom 
nad  a  half-dozen  stockmen  to  entertain.  They  had  gone  to 
Hooley's  and  Sam  T.  Jack's,  then  to  the  Athletic  Club  and 
then  they  called  on  Hinky  Dink  and  "Bath  House  John," 
the  famous  Cook  County  literary  light  jt  Where  else  they 
had  gone  they  could  not  remember.  ^  It  was  about  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  it  came  over  Tom  like  a  pall 
that  if  he  started  for  home  now  and  went  to  bed  he  would 
surely  be  late  again,  and  it  might  cost  him  his  job. 
He  proposed  that  they  make  a  night  of  it.  The  stockmen  were 
quite  willing.  They  headed  for  the  Stock-yards,  stopping 
along  the  way  to  make  little  visits  on  certain  celebrities.  At 
five  o'clock  they  reached  the  Armour  plant,  and  Tom  stowed 
his  friends  away  with  the  help  of  a  friendly  watchman.  Then 
he  made  for  the  shower-bath,  rubbed  down,  drank  two  cups 
of  coffee  and  went  to  his  desk.  It  was  just  six-thirty,  and 
being  winter,  was  yet  dark.  He  had  n't  any  more  than  yawned 
twice  and  stretched  himself,  wondering  if  he  could  hold  out 
until  noon,  when  he  heard  the  quick  step  of  "the  old  man." 
Tom  crouched  over  his  pretended  work  like  a  devil-fish 
devouring  its  prey.  He  never  looked  up,  he  was  that  busy. 
q  Mr.  Armour  stopped,  stared,  came  closer — yes,  it  was  Tom, 

149 


PHILIP  D.  the  late  Alibi  Tom,  the  chronic  derelict.  q**Well,  well,  well, 
ARMOUR  Tom,  the  Lord  be  praised  I  you  have  given  yourself  a  hunch 
at  last — keep  this!"  And  Armour  handed  out  a  brand-new 
crisp  five-dollar  bill.  C|Tom  had  now  set  a  stake  for  himself — 
he  had  to  make  good,  die  or  hike.  flHe  decided  to  make 
good.  ^  The  next  month  his  pay  was  raised  twenty-five 
dollars,  and  it  has  been  climbing  a  little  every  year  since. 


HILIP  D.  ARMOUR  was  a  man  of 
big  mental  and  physical  resources 
— big  in  brain,  rich  in  vital  power, 
bold  in  initiative  and  cautious 
when  he  should  be. 
Armour  had  two  peculiar  charac- 
teristics— he  refused  to  own  more 
land  than  he  could  use.  ^  His 
second  peculiarity  was  that  his 
only  stimulant  was  tea.  If  he  had 
an  unusually  big  problem  to  pass 
upon,  he  cut  down  his  food  and 
increased  his  tea  ^  Tea  was  his 
tipple.  It  opened  up  his  mentalpores 
and  gave  him  cosmic  consciousness.  Armour  had  so  much 
personality — so  much  magnetism — that  he  had  but  few 
competitors  in  his  business.  One  of  these  was  Nelson  Morris. 
^Now  Morris  was  a  type  of  man  that  Armour  had  never 
met.  Morris  was  a  Jew — a  Bavarian — who  affected  music, 
art  and  philosophy.  ^Nelson  Morris,  small,  smooth  of  face, 
humming  bars  from  Bach  and  quoting  Schopenhauer,  buy- 
ing hogs  at  the  Chicago  Stock-yards  and  then  killing  these 
hogs  for  the  gastronomical  delectation  of  Christians,  was  a 
sort  of  all  'round  Judaic  genius.  ^  The  Mosaic  Law  forbids 
the  Jews  eating  pork,  but  it  places  no  ban  or  bar  on  their 
dealing  in  it. 

Nelson  Morris  bought  hogs  at  Four  A.  M.,  or  as  soon  as  it 
was  light.  Armour  found  him  at  it  when  he  arrived,  and 
Philip  Armour  was  usually  the  earliest  bird  on  the  job. 
Yet  Armour  was  n*t  afraid  of  Morris — the  Jew  merely 
perplexed  him.  One  day  Armour  said  to  MacDowell,  his 
150 


secretary,  **I  say,  Mac,  Nelson  doesn't  need  a  guardian  I" 
^  The  Jew  was  getting  on  the  Armour  nerves — just  a  little. 
Armour  was  always  on  friendly  terms  with  his  competitors 
— he  was  on  friendly  terms  with  everybody — he  had  no 
grouch  and  never  got  in  a  grump.  Socially  he  was  irresistible. 
He  got  up  close — invited  confidence — made  friends  and  held 
them.  There  was  never  a  man  he  would  n't  speak  to.  He  was 
above  jealousy  and  beyond  hate,  yet  of  course,  when  it  came 
to  a  show-down,  he  might  hit  awfully  hard  and  quick,  but 
he  always  passed  out  his  commercial  wallop  with  a  smile  jt 
When  Sullivan  met  Corbett  at  New  Orleans,  Gentleman  Jim 
landed  the  champion  a  terrific  jolt  with  his  right,  smiled 
sweetly  and  said,  "To  think,  John,  of  your  coming  all  the 
way  from  Boston  to  get  that — also  this;"  then  he  gave  him 
another  with  his  left.  One  morning,  at  daylight,  when  Morris 
got  to  the  Stock-yards,  he  found  dl  the  pens  empty.  Armour 
and  his  pig  buyers  had  been  around  with  lanterns  all  night 
hunting  up  the  owners  and  bulling  the  market.  "To  think," 
said  Armour  to  Morris,  "to  think  of  your  coming  all  the  way 
from  Bavaria  hoping  to  get  the  start  of  me!"  Both  men 
smiled  serenely.  ^  The  next  week  whole  train-loads  of  pigs 
were  coming  to  Chicago  consigned  to  Nelson  Morris.  He  had 
sent  his  agents  out  and  was  buying  of  the  farmers,  direct. 
^  Soon  after.  Armour  casually  met  Morris  and  suggested  that 
they  lunch  together  that  day.  The  Jew  smiled  assent.  He  had 
scored  a  point — Armour  had  come  to  him. 
So  they  lunched  together.  The  Jew  ate  very  little.  Both  men 
talked  but  said  nothing.  They  were  waiting.  The  Jew  ate 
little,  but  he  drank  three  cups  of  tea. 
Armour  insisted  on  paying  the  check,  excused  himself 
somewhat  abruptly  and  hurried  to  his  office.  He  sent  for 
his  lieutenants.  They  came  quickly,  and  Armour  said,  "  Boys, 
I  've  just  lunched  with  Nelson  Morris.  I  think  we  *d  better 
come  to  an  understanding  with  him  as  to  a  few  little  things  we 
shall  do  and  a  fewwe  shall  not  do — he  drinks  nothing  but  tea." 


PHILIP  D, 
ARMOUR 


151 


PHILIP  D. 
ARMOUR 


HILIP  D.  ARMOUR,  unlike  many 
other  wise  men,  had  a  habit  of 
hiring  his  relatives  ^  He  took 
his  brothers  off  the  farm  and 
made  them  bankers  or  packers.  He 
hired  people  he  had  known  in  his 
boyhood  or  who  had  come  from 
"that  dear  Old  Oneida  County." 
Some  of  these  turned  out  well  and 
sometimes  their  benefactor  got 
their  eternal  enmity  through  help- 
ing them  into  a  position  which 
they  could  not  fill.  Armour  set  a 
rapid  pace ;  he  made  big  demands, 
and  only  a  right  sterling  character  could  stay  in  the  game. 
But  one  notable  exception  was  Everett  Wilson,  a  Madison 
County  boy  J-  This  was  credential  enough  to  get  him  the 
job,  and  then  he  had  to  hold  it  down  of  himself.  Q  And  he 
held  it  down.  Everett  Wilson  is  now  Superintendent  of  the 
Armour  Branch  Houses,  and  there  are  four  hundred  of  these. 
And  you  know  what  happens  when  meat  does  n*t  get  around 
on  time !  fl "Where  do  you  get  your  best  men?"  I  once  heard 
Joseph  Medill  ask  Philip  Armour. 
"I  raise  them — I  raise  them!"  was  the  answer. 
This  was  only  poetically  true,  for  Philip  Armour  was  always 
looking  for  talent.  Often,  as  he  walked  down  the  street  he 
would  make  comments  on  men  that  he  passed  thus :  "Thinks 
more  of  clothes  than  books — gets  fifteen  a  week  and  is  worth 
ten. "  ^"Late  hours — booze — too  smart — will  be  old  at  forty." 
"Good  boy — not  too  much  top-head.  He  is  going  somewhere 
on  an  errand — wish  he  would  come  to  me  for  a  job — he 
does  n't  know  too  much."  fl"He  *s  needlessly  sensitive  and 
foolishly  good — he  *11  have  to  be  coddled,  or  he  '11  get  a  sour 
spot  in  his  soul  and  imagine  you  have  it  in  for  him. " 
"Good  man,  educated  and  all  that,  but  too  much  daylight 
under  the  saddle  girth.  He  won't  stand  without  hitching. 
Put  him  in  the  business  bull-ring  and  he  'd  spend  most  of 
his  time  figuring  how  to  get  out  of  work." 
"  He 's  a  race-horse,  and  can  do  everything  but  go  fast. " 
This  running  comment  was  immensely  amusing  to  his 
companions,  and  when  Armour  got  on  what  they  called 
a  phrenological  rampage,  the  listeners  were  glad  to  let  him 
go  it.  "He  can  estimate  the  number  of  grains  on  an  ear  of 
152 


corn,  can  guess  the  weight  of  a  steer,  or  size  up  a  human  being     PHILIP  D. 
better  than  any  man  in  Chicago,"  once  said   Long  John     ARMOUR 
Wentworth.  ^George  Robbins  was  hired  on  one  of   these 
snap-shot  judgments.  **We  will  all  be  working  for  him  yet," 
said  Armour  ^  And  now  this  man  Robbins  is  President 
of  the  Armour  Car  Lines. 

Another  Armour  discovery,  Thomas  J.  Connors — who  is 
known  as  **Tom"  by  his  friends — introduced  the  new 
style  Western  dressed  beef  to  the  Eastern  palate — he  was 
on  the  firing  line  in  the  early  dressed-beef  days — and  that 
meant  something.  The  public  took  kindly  to  the  new  scheme, 
but  the  Eastern  butchers  did  not.  The  idea  hurt  their  feelings 
via  their  pocketbook — they  were  fighting  mad — and  sat 
up  nights  thinking  of  mean  things  to  say  and  new  tricks 
to  turn.  Tom,  however,  was  too  many  for  them.  He  was 
such  a  resourceful  scrapper  and  with  it  all  so  good-natured 
and  tactful  about  it  that  even  after  he  had  walloped  them 
they  secretly  liked  the  way  he  did  it,  and  became  strong 
friends  of  the  house.  Connors  located  the  branch  house 
outposts — they  succeeded  because  they  meant  **more  for 
many" — and  today  the  branch  houses  of  Armour  are  all 
over  the  world.  ^  Of  Connors,  I  once  heard  Armour  say — 
**He  is  descended  from  an  Irish  King,  and  yet  if  I  tell  him 
to  turn  mason  he  does  n't  demand  a  mahogany  hod. " 
Arthur  Meeker  is  one  of  the  **old  guard,"  as  the  leaders 
of  the  time  of  Philip  Armour  are  sometimes  called.  He  was 
grumbling  one  day — somewhat  cautiously — at  the  prospect 
of  a  winter  trip  to  Europe.  "Meeker,"  said  Armour,  "You 
are  like  the  Texan  in  the  country  store  who  yawningly 
remarked — *I  have  got  ter  go  ter  Palestine  tomorrer  and 
get  drunk,  and  I  hate  it  like  the  devil.  * " 
The  Treasurer  of  the  Company  is  S.  McRoberts,  hired 
originally  simply  on  account  of  the  "Mc."  "He  put  on  that 
Mc  when  he  applied  to  me  for  a  job,  because  he  knew  it 
would  catch  me — and  it  did.  Then  the  rogue  really  made 
good,  and  now  I  could  n*t  do  without  him, "  said  Armour. 
E.  E.  Chandler  is  another  of  Philip  Armour's  rich  finds. 
"I  hired  him  because  he  was  gawky,  and  could  never  bank 
either  on  his  grace  or  good  looks.  If  he  ever  succeeded  I 
knew  it  would  have  to  be  by  plain  hard  work,  and  I  made  no 
mistake."  flThis  hearty  interest  in  the  possibilities  of  men 
interested  him  quite  as  much  as  making  money.  He  gloried 
in  seeing  a  young  man  placed  in  a  trying  position  and  master 

153 


PHILIP  D  P^^ip  Armour  in  his  life  gave  employment  to  more  men 
ARMOUR  *^^^  ^^y  ^^®  single  living  man.  J.  Ogden  Armour  gives 
work  to  twice  as  many  people  as  his  father  ever  did. 
Philip  Armour  was  the  son  of  his  mother,  and  so  is  J.  Ogden 
Armour.  Philip  Armour  was  a  diamond  in  the  rough.  He 
was  a  diamond  all  right,  and  at  times  he  was  rough.  There 
were  several  very  noticeable  flaws  in  the  Armour  crystallized 
carbon.  His  exuberance  was  magnificent,  but  his  habit  of 
giving  advice  would  have  been  a  weariness  to  the  flesh  if  any 
one  else  had  tried  it.  He  liked  to  go  down  to  the  Armour 
Institute  and  make  a  little  Samuel  Smiles  speech  to  the 
assembled  youth.  His  vocabulary  at  times  surely  needed  to 
be  put  on  a  buffing-wheel.  His  stories  often  required  formalde- 
hyde ;  then  his  habit  of  giving  out  new  dollar  bills  was  not  a 
mark  of  greatness,  and  since  I  profited  by  this  propensity,  I 
have  a  perfect  right  to  criticize  it.  Armour  liked  to  relax  and 
play  the  grand  and  magnificent,  impulses  sometimes  called 
Chicagoese.  But  these  things  are  not  spots  on  the  son.  Ogden 
Armour  is  like  a  quail  in  a  stubble-field.  He  is  so  modest  in 
dress,  manner  and  action  that  he  fades  into  the  landscape, 
and  is  merely  a  part  of  the  ensemble.  He  never  rivals  the 
acetylene,  nor  does  he  jostle  those  who  have  taken  the  centre 
of  the  stage.  He  abjures  the  spot-light. 
When  the  Hon.  John  Morley  was  in  Chicago,  and  spent 
several  hours  at  the  Armour  plant,  he  said,  **Now  before  I 
go,  I  want  to  see  the  man  at  the  head  of  this  wonderful 
business!'*  And  the  answer  was,  **Why,  you  have  been 
talking  with  him  for  an  hour."  q** Impossible!  I  knew  the 
gentleman's  name  was  Armour,  but  he  never  once  said,  *I 
did  it' — nor  did  he  refer  to  my  father.  He  spoke  of  *Mr. 
Armour.'"  q  And  John  Morley  mused  and  murmured,  "But 
how  Chicago  and  Chicago  men  have  been  lied  about!" 
Belle  Ogden,  the  mother  of  J.  Ogden  Armour,  is  a  rare 
woman — rare  in  her  poise,  grace  and  mental  ballast.  She 
was  a  fit  helpmeet  for  Philip  Armour,  and  he  never  failed 
to  give  his  wife  due  credit  for  his  own  successes.  Philip 
Armour  never  went  out  to  spend  the  evening,  took  few 
holidays,  attended  no  Four-o'clocks,  went  to  few  plays.  His 
life  was  devoted  to  business,  and  when  he  played  it  was 
out-of-doors.  He  loved  horses,  and  always  had  a  few  that 
could  **step  along."  His  wife  never  ran  rival  to  him,  nor 
attempted  to  drag  him  out  and  place  him  on  display.  She 
knew  his  needs  and  ministered  to  them.  She  gave  him  peace. 
156 


She  never  publicly  corrected  his  statements,  nor  put  him  PHILIP  D. 
straight  as  to  facts  and  dates.  And  best  of  all,  she  always  ARMOUR  * 
laughed  at  his  jokes — and  this  is  the  final  test  of  marital 
fidelity.  tI**My  culture  is  mostly  in  my  wife's  name,**  said 
Philip  Armour  to  Leonard  Swett,  and  this  was  a  jest  in 
earnest.  If  J.  Ogden  Armour  ever  thinks  of  that  remark  of  his 
father's,  "I  could  not  possibly  have  picked  better  parents — 
God  has  been  good  to  me" — he  must  instinctively  echo, 
"Here  too!"  Philip  Armour  valued  money,  but  he  prized 
it  only  as  a  measure  of  power.  His  joy  was  in  doing  things — 
in  overcoming  difiiculties — in  planning,  building,  devising, 
creating.  His  ambitions  always  outstripped  his  resources,  and 
so  he  usually  felt  poor.  He  did  not  hoard  money,  he  invested 
it  so  it  would  set  more  men  to  work.  The  house  of  Armour  & 
Company  has  always  been  a  great  borrower,  for  it  is  ever 
growing,  expanding,  building. 

Much  of  the  recent  criticism  of  our  industrial  leaders  has 
been  by  people  unversed  in  both  economics  and  psychology, 
and  unable  by  temperament  to  comprehend  or  appreciate 
the  burdens  of  a  captain  of  industry.  They  do  not  know 
that  a  man  whose  heart  is  set  on  making  money,  never 
makes  much  money.  Neither  do  they  know  that  a  life  of 
luxury  and  ease  is  not  typical  of  **the  men  who  own  Amer- 
ica." J.  Ogden  Armour  inherited  a  vast  business,  and  he 
has  met  the  responsibility  of  administering  it  bravely  yet 
modestly.  He  has  conserved  and  protected  this  business 
and  thereby  has  he  protected  the  interests  of  the  vast  army 
of  workers  to  whom  it  gives  employment.  And  he  has  also 
protected  the  public  that  this  business  serves. 
At  the  new  palatial  office  building  of  Armour  &  Company 
there  is  a  daily  conference  of  the  heads  of  departments. 
The  Big  Boys  dine  together  and  talk  things  over  with  a 
frankness  of  criticism  that  might  be  appalling  if  it  were 
not  all  delightfully  good-natured  jt  Men  who  carry  big 
responsibilities,  I  haVe  noticed,  are  always  able  to  laugh. 
^  They  must  relax  and  rest  at  times  otherwise  they  could 
not  go  on.  **The  Infinite  Love  that  made  the  Burden,  also 
prepared  the  Back,"  says  the  Kasida.  It  was  this  joy  in 
life  that  gave  Philip  Armour  his  strength,  and  his  heroic 
soul  still  pervades  the  place.  Let  no  theorist  convince  you 
that  corporations  have  no  souls — the  only  corporation  that 
has  no  soul  is  a  dead  one.  The  idea  of  the  corporation  was 
a  legal  device  of  the  Romans,  and  it  never  ceased  to  excite 

157 


PHILIP  D.    the  admiration  of  Lord  Coke,  who  referred  to  it  as  **an 
ARMOUR    intellect  without    decline,   a  body  without  death,   a  soul 
with  a  purpose  that  ever  inspires. " 

Certain  fixed  policies  prevail  at  Armour's.  One  of  these  is 
that  there  must  be  no  misrepresentation.  That  absolute 
frankness  must  prevail  between  the  house  and  the  patrons. 
That  all  complaints  must  be  carefully  and  courteously 
considered  and  then  adjusted.  That  no  hasty  or  ill-tempered 
letter  shall  ever  be  written.  That  no  product  is  ever  "good 
enough  " — it  must,  if  possible,  be  made  better. 
In  no  position  can  one  get  so  good  a  side-light  on  J.  Ogden 
Armour  as  at  the  daily  lunch.  There  he  is  relaxed  and  at 
his  ease.  His  own  order  is  very  slight — his  eating  is  simple. 
He  thanks  you  when  you  pass  the  brown  bread,  and  is 
courteous  to  the  waiter,  without  being  familiar.  You  can 
always  tell  a  gentleman  by  his  attitude  toward  those  who 
are  socially  beneath  him. 

Ogden  Armour  inspires  respect,  but  not  fear.  He  is  a  good 
listener,  and  to  listen  is  a  fine  art.  Undivided  attention 
confounds  the  fool,  and  encourages  the  man  of  brains. 
Philip  D.  Armour  used  to  "give  the  calf  more  rope,"  and 
Ogden  does  the  same.  This  habit  has  made  his  lieutenants 
rapid,  quick,  alert  and  epigrammatic.  If  some  one  is  going  to 
make  close  note  of  your  vaporings,  you  soon  learn  to  condense. 
^  I  noticed  that  when  Ogden  Armour  wants  something  done 
he  has  a  way  of  asking,  thus:  "Mr.  Merritt,  don't  you  think 
that  we  better,"  etc.  It  is  a  subtle  form  of  compliment  that 
brings  out  the  best — provided  your  man  is  really  a  man. 
And  when  Mr.  Armour  was  talking  to  E.  B.  Merritt  he  knew 
his  man  ^  Merritt  is  a  newspaper  product  who  dotes  on 
printers*  ink  and  is  stuck  on  the  glue-roller.  He  was  once 
a  printers'  devil  and  has  never  fully  recovered.  He  knows 
the  science  of  advertising  probably  as  well  as  any  man  in 
Chicago — a  city  that  has  not  hidden  her  light  under  a  bushel 
— and  Mr.  Armour  knows  he  knows,  hence  his  order  put 
in  the  form  of  asking  advice. 

In  speaking  of  their  Chief  in  his  absence,  these  Big  Boys 
often  call  him  "Mr.  Ogden,"  a  term  which  implies  both 
affection  and  respect.  They  abbreviate  the  name  with 
characteristic  economy,  yet  without  loss  of  dignity. 
Mr.  J.  Ogden  Armour  is  not  a  college  graduate.  He  attended 
the  Yale  Sheflield  Scientific  School  for  two  years;  then  he 
entered  the  service  of  Armour  &  Company,  via  the  bill- 
iS8 


desk  route,  at  eight  dollars  a  week,  with  no  favors  asked 
or  given.  He  is,  from  a  business  viewpoint,  decidedly  friendly 
to  college  men  and  is  especially  favorable  to  young  men 
educated  in  technical  and  manual  training-schools.  This  is 
shown  by  his  keen  interest  in  the  Armour  Institute  of 
Technology  and  its  output.  He  feels  that  his  business,  from 
an  operating  standpoint  especially,  is  materially  strengthened 
when  handled  by  men  possessing  trained  technical  minds 
combined  with  **farm  sense,"  the  latter  of  course,  being 
primary.  His  greatest  difficulty  has  been  to  secure  educated 
young  men  who  keep  their  feet  on  the  ground — who  have 
been  bred  close  to  the  grass — who  have  definite  objects  in 
life  and  who  appreciate  that  honesty,  sane  invention,  hard 
work  and  patience  will  bring  results.  He  wants  young  men 
whose  geometrical  knowledge  starts  with  a  full  appreciation 
of  the  dimensions  and  value  of  a  dollar  and  what  must  be 
delivered  to  get  it  Jt>  He  approves  of  methodical,  steady 
thinkers  and  workers,  educated  men  who  have  respect  for 
practical  men — men  who  are  willing  to  begin  at  the  bottom 
— to  submit  to  discipline — ready  to  volunteer — anxious  to 
please  by  doing — and  they  are  not  growing  on  every  campus. 


PHILIP  D, 
ARMOUR 


RIOR  to  the  invention  of  the 
refrigerator-car,  the  business  of 
the  packer  was  to  cure  salt  meats 
and  pack  them  for  transportation. 
Besides  this,  he  supplied  the  local 
market  with  fresh  meats. 
Up  to  the  early  eighties  fresh 
meat  was  not  shipped  any  distance 
except  in  midwinter,  and  then  as 
frozen  meat  J^  Surplus  Western 
cattle  were  shipped  East  alive — 
and  subject  to  heavy  risks,  shrink- 
age and  expense.  About  fifty  per 
cent  of  the  live  weight  was  dressed 
beef — balance  non-edible — so  double  freight  was  paid  on 
the  edible  portion.  Could  this  freight  be  saved?  ^About  this 
time  Hammond,  of  Detroit,  mounted  a  refrigerator  on  car- 

159 


PHILIP  D.  wheels,  loaded  it  with  dressed  beef  and  headed  it  for  New 
ARMOUR  York — where  the  condition  of  the  meat  on  arrival  satisfied 
every  one  in  the  trade  except  the  local  slaughterer.  ^  The 
car  was  crude — but  it  turned  the  trick — a  new  era  had 
arrived  ^  The  corn  belt  came  into  its  own — **Corn  was 
King" — the  steer,  the  heir  apparent.  ^  Phil  Armour  saw  the 
point.  Pay  freight  on  edible  portion  only.  Save  the  waste. 
Make  more  out  of  the  critter  than  the  competitor  can.  Pay 
morefor  him — Get  him  J^  Sell  the  meat  for  less  ^  Get 
the  business — grow  ^  And  he  got  busy  perfecting  the 
refrigerator-car. 

Armour  called  together  railroad  men  and  laid  the  project 
before  them.  They  objected  that  a  car,  for  instance,  sent 
from  Chicago  to  New  York  would  require  to  be  iced  several 
times  during  the  journey,  otherwise  there  might  be  the  loss 
of  the  entire  load.  A  car  of  beef  was  worth  fifteen  hundred 
dollars.  The  freight  was  two  hundred  dollars  or  less.  The 
railroad  men  raised  their  hands  in  horror.  Beside  transporting 
goods  they  would  have  to  turn  insurance  company.  Armour 
still  insisted  that  they  could  and  should  provide  suitable  cars 
for  their  patrons. 

The  railroad  men  then  came  back  with  this  rejoinder:  **  You 
make  your  own  cars  and  we  will  haul  them,  provided  you 
will  ask  us  to  incur  only  the  ordinary  risks  of  transportation." 
Armour  accepted  the  challenge — it  was  the  only  thing  to 
do.  He  made  one  car,  and  then  twenty  J^  Fresh  beef  was 
shipped  from  Chicago  to  New  York,  and  arrived  in  perfect 
order.  To  ship  live  cattle  long  distances,  he  knew  was  unwise. 
And  he  then  declared  that  Omaha,  Kansas  City,  St.  Paul  and 
various  other  cities  of  the  West  would  yet  have  great 
slaughter-houses,  where  live  stock  could  be  received  after 
a  very  short  haul.  The  product  could  then  be  passed  along 
in  refrigerator-cars,  and  the  expense  of  ice  would  not  be 
as  much  as  to  unload  and  feed  the  stock.  But  better  than  all 
the  product  would  be  more  wholesome. 
Armour  began  to  manufacture  refrigerator-cars.  He  offered 
to  sell  these  to  railroad  companies.  A  few  roads  bought  cars, 
and  after  a  few  months  proposed  to  sell  them  back  to  Armour 
— the  expense  and  care  of  operating  them  required  too  much 
care  and  attention.  Shippers  would  not  ship  unless  it  was 
guaranteed  that  the  car  would  be  re-iced,  and  that  it  would 
arrive  at  its  destination  within  a  certain  time. 
In  the  fall,  fresh  peaches  were  being  shipped  across  the  lake 
i6o 


to  Chicago  from  Michigan.  If  the  peaches  were  one  night    PHILIP  D. 
on  the  way  they  arrived  in  good  order.  ARMOUR 

This  gave  Armour  an  idea — he  sent  a  couple  of  refrigerator- 
cars  around  to  St.  Joseph,  loaded  them  with  fresh  peaches, 
and  shipped  them  to  Boston.  He  sent  a  man  with  the  cars 
who  personally  attended  to  icing  the  cars,  just  as  we  used 
to  travel  in  the  caboose  to  look  after  the  live  stock.  ^  The 
peaches  reached  Boston,  cool  and  fresh,  and  were  sold  in  an 
hour  at  a  good  profit.  At  once  there  was  a  demand  for  refrig- 
erator-cars from  Michigan — the  new  way  opened  the  markets 
of  America  to  the  producer  of  fruits  and  vegetables.  ^  There 
was  a  clamorous  demand  for  refrigerator-cars. 
The  reason  a  railroad  cannot  afford  to  have  its  own  refriger- 
ator-cars, is  because  the  fruit  or  berry  season  in  any  one 
place  is  short.  For  instance,  six  weeks  covers  the  grape 
period  of  the  Lake  Erie  grape  belt;  one  month  is  about 
the  limit  on  Michigan  peaches;  strawberries  from  Southern 
Illinois  are  gone  in  two  or  three  weeks. 
Therefore  to  handle  the  cars  advantageously,  the  railroads  find 
it  much  better  to  rent  them,  or  simply  haul  them  on  a  mileage. 
^  The  business  is  a  specialty  in  itself,  and  requires  most  astute 
generalship  to  make  it  pay.  Cars  have  to  be  sent  to  Alabama 
in  February  and  March;  North  Carolina  a  little  later,  then 
West  Virginia.  These  same  cars  then  do  service  in  the  fall 
in  Michigan  jt  It  naturally  follows  that  much  of  the  time 
cars  have  to  be  hauled  empty,  and  this  is  a  fact  that  few 
people  figure  on  when  computing  receipts  from  tonnage. 
Now,  instead  of  the  good  old  way  of  sending  a  man  in  charge, 
there  are  icing  stations,  where  the  car  is  looked  for,  carefully 
examined  and  cared  for  as  a  woman  would  look  after  a  baby. 
In  order  to  bring  apples  from  Utah  to  Colorado,  and  oranges 
from  California  to  Arizona,  ice  houses  have  been  built  on  the 
desert  at  vast  expense.  And  this  in  a  climate  where  frost  is 
unknown.  flTo  work  the  miracle  of  modern  industrialism 
requires  the  help  of  bespectacled  scientists  from  Germany, 
and  a  fine  army  of  artists,  poets,  painters,  plumbers,  doctors, 
lawyers,  beside  the  workers  in  wood  and  metals. 
In  the  operation  of  the  Private  Car  Lines,  no  doubt  there  have 
been  occasional  errors  and  mistakes  in  judgment,  but  these 
are  being  eliminated  as  time  goes  on.  To  make  life  hard  does 
not  mean  success  to  any  one,  and  the  modern  business  man 
knows  it.  The  charge  that  ice  melts  is  probably  true,  but  the 
great  fact  remains  that  the  producer  and  consumer  are  vastly 

i6i 


PHILIP  D.  benefited  by  this  wonderful  enterprise  that  carries  things  in 
ARMOUR  s^ety  from  where  they  are  plentiful  to  where  they  are  needed. 
The  whole  business  is  a  creation,  and  a  beneficent  one.  It 
has  opened  up  vast  territories  to  the  farmer,  gardener  and 
stock-raiser,  where  before  cactus  and  sage-bush  were  supreme 
and  the  prairie-dog,  and  his  chum  the  rattlesnake,  held  un- 
disputed sway.  ^  To  the  wealth  of  the  world  it  has  added 
untold  millions,  not  to  mention  the  matters  of  health,  hygiene 
and  happiness  for  the  people.  If  the  world  wants  more  fruits 
and  vegetables,  and  less  meat,  let  it  say  the  word,  and  the 
Armour  Ref  rigerator-Cars  will  bring  the  savory  things  to  your 
door.  ^  These  truths  came  to  me  strangely  the  other  day  at 
Norfolk,  Virginia,  where  I  saw  an  Armour  Refrigerator-Car 
being  loaded  with  violets — afresh  and  fragrant — bound  for 
Pittsburgh  jt   ^ 


HE  Scotch-Irish  blood  carries  a 
mighty  persistent  corpuscle.  It  is 
the  blood  that  made  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  Lord  "Bobs,''  Robert 
Fulton,  James  Oliver,  Cyrus  Hall 
McCormick,  James  J.  Hill  and 
Thomas  A.  Edison  ^  It  makes 
fighters,  inventors  and  creators — 
stubborn  men  who  never  know 
when  they  are  licked.  They  can 
live  on  nothing  and  follow  an 
idea  to  its  lair.  They  laugh  at 
difficulties,  grow  fat  on  opposition 
and  obstacle  only  inspires  them  to 
renewed  efforts.  ^  Yet  their  fight  is  fair,  and  in  the  true  type 
there  is  a  delicate  sense  of  personal  honor  which  only  the 
strong  possess.  Philip  D.  Armour's  word  was  his  bond.  He 
never  welched,  and  even  his  most  persistent  enemies  never 
accused  him  of  double-dealing.  When  he  fought,  it  was  in 
the  open,  and  he  fought  to  a  finish.  Then  when  his  adversary 
cried,  ** Enough!"  he  would  carry  him  in  his  arms  to  a 
place  of  safety  and  bind  up  his  wounds  j^  When  rightly 
approached  his  heart  was  as  tender  as  a  girl's. 
162 


Once  upon  a  time  Armour  had  sold  for  May  delivery  through  PHILIP  D. 

elevators  in  Chicago  some  three  million  odd  bushels  of  wheat  ARMOUR 

he  had  purchased  in  the  Northwest.  During  late  March  he 

suspected  that  some  of  his  friends  owning  wheat  stored  in 

these  elevators  intended  to  keep  it  there  during  May  so  that 

he  could  not  make  his  deliveries.  Things  were  doing — May 

wheat  sky-rocketed.  Armour  was  in  a  pocket — newspaper 

ways.  Was  he?  In  forty  days  he  had  a  three  million-bushel 

elevator  approaching  completion — Dave  Simpson  his  builder, 

with  three  shifts  of  eight-hour  workers,  turning  the  trick  jt 

The  new  elevator  did  n*t  cost  him  anjthing.  He  filled  his 

contracts.  Qln  business  he  paid  to  the  last  cent;  and  he 

expected  others  to  pay,  too.  For  clerks  in  a  comatose  state, 

and  the  shirker  who  would  sell  his  labor  and  then  connive  to 

give  short  count,  he  had  no  pity ;  but  for  the  stricken  or  the 

fallen,  his  heart  and  his  purse  were  always  open.  He  gloried 

in  work  and  he  could  not  understand  why  others  shoxild  not 

get  their  enjoyment  out  of  work  also. 

He  kept  farmers'  hours  throughout  his  life,  going  to  bed  at 

nine  o'clock  and  getting  up  at  five.  He  prized  sleep — God's 

great  gift  of  sleep — and  used  to  quote  Sancho  Panza,  "God 

bless  the  man  who  first  invented  sleep. " 

Yet  he  slept  only  that  he  might  arise  and  work.  To  be  well 

and  healthy  and  strong  and  joyous  was  to  him  not  only  a 

privilege  but  a  duty.  If  he  used  tobacco  it  was  never  during 

business  hours.  For  strong  drink  he  had  an  abhorrence, 

simply  because  he  thought  it  useless,  save  possibly  as  a 

medicine,  and  he  believed  that  no  man  would  need  medicine 

if  he  lived  rightly. 

That  very  able  and  usually  sensible  man,  Arthur  Brisbane, 

in  a  recent  article  suggests  that  Armour  &  Company  would 

do  well  to  install  canteens  on  their  plant  for  the  benefit  of 

their   workmen,   instead   of   allowing   these   workmen   to 

patronize  the  cheap  saloons  that  hang  upon  the  fringe  of 

Packingtown.  flThe  suggestion  was  probably  well-meant,  but 

nothing  could  be  more  un-Armourlike  than  a  traffic  in  strong 

drink  jt  One  could  as  well  imagine  Ben  Franklin  doing  a 

like  thing.  As  it  is,  the  carper,  the  quibbler  and  the  unco 

gude  have  had  their  say  of  Armour,  and  now  just  imagine 

their  renewed  howl  of  disapproval  if  Armour  &  Company 

should    follow  the    suggestion  of   this  sincere  and  gentle 

anarch,  Arthur  Brisbane,  and  supply  an  enemy  to  place  in 

the  mouths  of  the  toilers  to  steal  away  their  brains  1 

163 


PHILIP  D.  ^  ^^^  years  ago  I  read  an  article  by  Arthur  Brisbane  in 
ARMOUR  denunciation  of  the  *' Company  Store"  which  is  operated 
by  certain  boss  coal-miners.  And  now  this  same  man  who 
denounced  company  stores  advocates  company  saloons.  If 
it  were  tried  we  might  get  a  scathing  article  from  the  same 
pen  on  **the  greed  that  prompts  our  rich  malefactors  to 
batten  and  fatten  on  the  thirst  of  overworked  employees. " 
^  Anatole  France  has  a  philosophy,  one  tenet  of  which  is, 
**No  matter  what  you  do,  you  '11  be  sorry  for  it.  Also,  if  you 
don't  do  it,  you  '11  be  sorry  you  did  n't. " 
Verily,  the  industrial  leader,  like  leaders  of  any  kind,  follows 
a  path  that  leads  by  the  thorn  road.  The  only  man  who  is 
really  safe  from  unkind  criticism  is  the  man  who  does 
nothing,  says  nothing  and  is  nothing. 

It  so  happened  once  that  Mr.  Armour  was  booked  to  leave 
for  New  York  for  Europe  on  Thursday.  He  had  taken  the 
eleven  o'clock  train  Wednesday  for  Milwaukee.  At  three 
o'clock  the  head  of  the  office  received  a  message  instructing 
that  several  men  should  break  any  personal  engagements 
they  might  have  that  night  and  be  prepared  to  work  all  night 
if  necessary,  and  to  cancel  his  European  reservations  jt 
Further  instructions  were  received  by  wire. 
At  seven  o'clock  Mr.  Armour  turned  up  at  the  office.  It 
seems  that  his  friend  Plankinton  had  become  involved  in 
a  wheat  deal — was  long  some  ten  million  bushels  of  wheat, 
and  was  in  trouble.  Following  wired  instructions,  one  of  the 
office  force  had  gone  to  a  certain  broker's  office  and  had 
returned  with  a  bunch  of  warehouse  receipts  about  a  fo 
high  covering  grain  in  warehouses.  Mr.  Armour  immediately 
got  busy  and  the  upshot  of  it  was  that  Mr.  Plankinton  was 
pulled  out  of  his  dilemma  and  both  he  and  Mr.  Armour  had 
harnessed  up  a  pretty  fair  bunch  of  money. 
He  never  entered  a  deal  without  first  financing  it.  If  he 
figured  that  five  million  dollars  would  be  all  that  would  be 
needed,  he  arranged  for  ten  million,  feeling  that  the  interest 
on  the  surplus  money  was  cheap  insurance. 
One  day  he  purchased  on  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange 
fifty  thousand  shares  of  St.  Paul  Railroad  stock  and  paid 
for  it.  Fifty  thousand  share  transactions  today  are  not 
enormous,  but  in  the  early  eighties  such  deals  were  very  large. 
flHe  foresaw  the  possibilities  of  the  West  and  the  Northwest, 
and  in  company  with  Alex.  Mitchell,  "Diamond  Joe" 
Reynolds,  Fred  Layton,  John  Plankinton  and  others,rtook 
164 


great  personal  pride  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  country.  He  was  PHILIP  D. 
possessed  of  an  active  imagination.  In  a  bigger,  broader  ARMOUR 
sense  he  was  a  dreamer.  In  his  every  action  and  thought 
he  was  a  doer.  He  was  very  fond  of  children  and  would  drop 
almost  any  work  he  had  in  hand  to  talk  for  a  few  minutes 
with  a  small  boy  or  girl.  He  kept  a  stock  of  small  Swiss 
watches  in  his  desk  to  present  to  his  junior  callers.  His 
great  hobby  was  presenting  his  men  with  a  suit  of  clothes 
should  they  suggest  anything  out  of  the  ordinary  or  do 
anything  which  attracted  his  commendation.  Nearly  all  of 
those  close  to  him  were  presented  with  gold  watches. 
It  was  in  the  late  seventies.  Mr.  Armour,  with  officials,  was 
inspecting  the  St.  Paul  Railway.  A  rumor  was  circulated 
that  Armour  &  Company  was  in  financial  trouble,  and  Mr. 
Armour  was  so  advised.  His  return  was  so  prompt  that  it 
was  suggested  that  he  must  have  come  down  over  the  wire. 
He  was  very  much  incensed,  and  his  first  query  was  as  to 
who  had  started  the  rumor. 

The  president  of  a  Chicago  bank  had  loaned  Armour  & 
Company  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  note  due  in  ninety 
days.  For  some  reason  known  only  to  himself,  he  had  made 
a  demand  on  the  cashier  for  the  payment  of  this  note  some 
sixty  days  before  it  was  due,  and  very  naturally  in  the  absence 
of  Mr.  Armour,  did  not  get  his  money. 
Everett  Wilson  at  that  time  was  a  member  of  the  Ogden 
Boat  Club,  and  was  quite  friendly  with  a  son  of  the  president 
of  the  bank  above  referred  to.  This  young  man  remarked  to 
Mr.  Wilson  that  he  had  never  felt  so  sorry  for  a  man  in  his 
life  as  he  did  for  his  father  the  day  before.  He  said  Phil 
Armour  had  come  over  to  the  bank — had  bearded  his  father 
in  his  den  and  had  gone  after  him  so  fiercely — had  gotten 
under  him  in  so  many  ways — had  lampooned  him  up  dale 
and  down  hill,  that  there  was  nothing  left  of  his  father  but 
a  bunch  of  apologetic  confusion,  and  that  the  interview  had 
ended  by  Mr.  Armour's  throwing  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 
in  currency  in  the  gentleman's  face.  The  young  man  said  he 
never  knew  that  a  man  could  be  so  indignant  and  so 
voluble  as  Mr.  Armour  was,  and  that  it  had  made  a  lasting 
impression  on  him.  qPhilip  Armour  had  very  high  business 
ideals.  To  sell  an  article  at  more  than  it  was  worth,  or  to  deceive 
the  buyer  as  to  quality  in  any  way,  he  would  have  regarded 
as  a  calamity.  He  delighted  in  the  thought  that  the  men  with 
whom  he  traded  were  his  friends.  That  his  prosperity  had 

165 


PHILIP  D.  been  the  prosperity  of  the  producing  West,  and  also  to  the 
ARMOUR  advantage  of  the  consuming  East,  were  great  sources  of 
satisfaction  ^  To  personal  criticism  he  very  seldom  made 
reply,  feeling  that  a  man's  life  should  justify  itself,  and  that 
explanation,  excuse  or  apology  are  unworthy  in  a  man  who 
is  doing  his  best  to  help  himself  by  helping  humanity. 
But  in  spite  of  his  indifference  to  calumny  his  years  were 
shortened  by  the  stab  of  a  pen — the  thing  which  killed 
Keats — the  tumult  of  wild  talk  concerning  *^  embalmed 
beef,"  started  by  a  Dr.  William  Daly  who  shortly  after 
committed  suicide,  and  taken  up  to  divert  public  attention 
from  the  unpreparedness  of  the  country  to  properly  take 
care  of  the  health  of  its  volunteer  soldiery. 
Mr.  Armour,  as  Father  of  the  Packing  House  Industry, 
was  keenly  sensitive  to  these  slanders  on  the  quality  of  the 
product  and  the  honesty  of  the  packers.  The  charges  were 
thoroughly  investigated  by  a  board  of  army  officers  and 
declared  by  them  to  be  without  foundation. 
Scandal  and  defamation  in  war-time  are  imminent;  the 
literary  stink-pot  rivals  the  lyddite  of  the  enemy;  fever, 
envy,  malice  and  murderous  tongues  strike  in  the  dark 
and  retreat  in  a  miasmic  fog.  Here  were  forces  that  Philip 
Armour,  as  unsullied  and  as  honorable  as  Philip  Sydney, 
could  not  fight,  because  he  could  not  locate  them. 
About  the  same  time  came  one  Joseph  Leiter,  who  tried 
to  comer  the  wheat  of  the  world.  Chicago  looked  to  Armour 
to  punish  the  presumptuous  one.  And  so  Armour,  already 
bowed  with  burdens,  kept  the  Straights  of  Mackinaw  open 
in  midwinter,  and  delivered  millions  of  bushels  of  real 
wheat  for  real  money  to  meet  the  machinations  of  the 
bounding  Leiter.  Here,  too.  Armour  was  fighting  for  Chicago, 
if  possible,  to  redeem  her  good  name  in  the  eyes  of  the  nations. 
^  And  Armour  won ;  but  it  was  like  that  last  shot  of  Brann's, 
sent  after  he,  himself,  had  fallen.  Philip  Armour  slipped  down 
into  the  valley  and  passed  into  the  shadow,  unafraid.  Like 
Cyrano  he  said,  **I  am  dying,  but  I  am  not  defeated,  nor  am 
I  dismayed ! "  And  so  they  laid  his  tired  body  in  the  window- 
less  house  of  rest. 


i66 


J.    OGDEN     ARMOUR 


^^  When  writing  men  like  Gentile  Bellini,  William  Caxton, 
^1  Benjamin  Franklin,  Horace  Walpole,  William  Morris  and 
^^  Thomas  D  e  Vinne  felt  in  the  mood  to  exude  some  particularly- 
hot  copy,  they  hiked  for  the  type-case  and  worked  their  energy  up 
into  a  galley  of  Good  Stuff  ,^  They  set  up  the  matter  as  they 
composed  it.  Thus  we  get  the  words  "composing-stick"  and 
"compositor."  Qln  those  days  the  printer  was  always  a  man  of 
considerable  literary  ability.  People  used  to  doff  their  hats  when 
they  met  him  on  the  street  and  address  "Mr.  Printer."  And  as 
a  follow-up  custom,  it  was  only  the  day  before  yesterday  that 
folks  stopped  saying  "Mr.  Editor."  Q  These  early  printer-authors 
had  pronounced  preferences  for  different  type  faces  and  families, 
and  the  adoption  or  rejection  of  these  various  choices  segregated 
all  shops  into  exponents  of  certain  "styles."  Q  Every  print-shop 
now  has  its  particular  conception  of  what  constitutes  style  in 
typography.  No  two  offices  have  identical  views  on  this  subject, 
though  all  of  them  are  evolving  towards  an  Idea  which  had  its 
first  modern  impulse  in  The  Roycroft  Shop.  QThe  beauty  and 
adaptability  of  this  Idea  found  for  it  considerable  favor,  and 
"Roycroft  Style"  is  now  a  well-known  phrase  in  commercial  print- 
ing circles.  But  the  best  printers  in  the  country  have  been  unable 
to  successfully  reproduce  "Roycroft  Style."  For  "Roycroft  Style" 
is  more  than  a  style,  it 's  an  Art — an  Art  born  of  Artistic 
Environment  and  developed  by  boys  and  girls  working  ^ 
under  conditions  which  approach  the  Ideal  ^  At  the  ^ 
Roycroft  Shop  we  produce  both  Art  and  Artists  ^ 


If  You  Want  Printing  Done  Very  •  j^ 
De  Luxe,  Let  Us  Know  Your  Needs 


/^ipfHE  man  who  buys  Wool  Underwear,  light  or  heavy,  must  buy 
ilL  again  when  the  laundry's  work  is  done  ^  Six  trips  to  the  soap- 
^^^  wasters  will  shrink  a  Wool  Garment  to  the  degree  where  a  shoe- 
horn is  an  almost  necessity  in  the  donning!  And  then  it  fits  like  a 
Wienie's  Skin,  believe  me!,^^^^^^^^^^ 

LIST    TO    THIS! 

"Papa's  shirt  was  passed  down  through  the  members  of  the  family 
until,  when  too  small  for  the  baby,  its  only  utility  was  to  serve  as  a 
wick  for  a  lamp."  Q  Poor  Papa !  Next  time  he  '11  buy  the  Wool  that 's 
Wool,  plus  the  Non-shrinking  Quality — DERMOPHILE  Underwear. 
Q  A  Sure  Nuff  Promise!  Put  the  DERMOPHILE  Underwear  to  any 
test— IF  IT  SHRINKS— your  money  back.  Q  Could  we  afford  to  do 
this    if   we   were  'nt   on   the   right   side    of    the   fence  ?   Ask   Felix ! 

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WINNIFRED  HARPER  COOLEY  ANNIE  NATHAN  MEYER  ALEXANDER  HARVEY 
A  tremendous  question  sincerely  and  fearlessly  discussed. The  number  also  contains  a  complete 
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Booklet  which  tells  how  priceless  Business  Experience,  squeezed  from  the  lives 
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SYSTEM,   Department  240,    151-153    Waba«h    Avenue,   CHICAGO,    ILUNOIS 


EDUCATION 

*HE  great  trouble  with  the  public  school  is  that 
many  things  are  taught  that  are  of  no  immediate 
use.  I  believe  in  manual  training  schools.  I  believe 
in  the  kindergarten  system.  Every  person  ought 
to  be  taught  how  to  do  something — ought  to  be 
taught  the  use  of  their  hands.  They  should  en- 
deavor to  put  in  palpable  form  the  ideas  that 
they  gain.  Such  an  education  gives  them  a  confidence  in  them- 
selves, a  confidence  in  the  future — gives  them  a  spirit  and  feeling 
of  independence  that  they  do  not  now  have. 

Children  should  be  taught  to  think,  to  investigate,  to  rely  upon 
the  light  of  reason,  of  observation  and  experience;  should  be 
taught  to  use  all  their  senses;  and  they  should  be  taught  only 
that  which  in  some  sense  is  really  useful.  They  should  be  taught 
to  use  tools,  to  use  their  hands,  to  embody  their  thoughts  in  the 
construction  of  things.  Their  lives  should  not  be  wasted  in  the 
acquisition  of  the  useless,  or  of  the  almost  useless.  Years  should 
not  be  devoted  to  the  acquisition  of  the  dead  languages,  or  to 
the  study  of  history  which,  for  the  most  part,  is  a  detailed 
account  of  things  that  never  occurred.  It  is  useless  to  fill  the 
mind  with  dates  of  great  battles,  with  the  births  and  deaths  of 
kings.  They  should  be  taught  the  philosophy  of  history,  the 
growth  of  nations,  of  philosophies,  theories,  and  above  all,  of 
the  sciences.  They  should  be  taught  the  importance,  not  only  of 
financial,  but  of  mental,  honesty;  to  be  absolutely  sincere;  to 
utter  their  real  thoughts,  and  to  give  their  actual  opinions ;  and 
if  parents  want  honest  children,  they  should  be  honest  them- 
selves. It  may  be  that  hypocrites  transmit  their  failing  to  their 
offspring.  Men  and  women  who  pretend  to  agree  with  the  majority, 
who  think  one  way  and  talk  another,  can  hardly  expect  their 
children  to  be  absolutely  sincere.— ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 


ARE   YOU   A   SUBSCRIBER    TO 

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better  than  you  now  do. 

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will  contain  articles  of  vast  importance 
to  you  personally. 

You  may  accept  this  as  our  guarantee 
of  a  highly  interesting  and  instructive 
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91  West  Fort  Street        -         Detroit,  Michigan 


HE  fortunate 


circumstances 


of  our  lives  are 


generally  found,  at  last, 
to  be  of  our  own  making 


G    O   L   D   S   M  IT  H 


LAY  it  down 
as  a  safe  prop- 
osition that 
the  fellow 
who,  every  little  while, 
has  to  break  into  the* 
baby's  bank  for  car  fare, 
isn't  going  to  evolve  into 
a  Baron  Rothschild  ae  ^ 


PHILIP        D    . 


ARMOUR 


Vol.  24 


JUNE,   MCMIX 


No.  6 


iio^Rnrv^ 


TO  THF  H 


miJ9  MFM 


BY  ELEERT 


HiyggHRN 


,.,^... 


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Ea3EIlHTDZB 
iZQOK- BY-TEE 


SE5K 


a0S0EmEix 


SggglTF\//>V017T^ag 


El 


berptijing 
great  ig 
not  altoaps! 
goob,  t)«t  all  goob 
tfjings!  are  great. 


tmosttitntsi 


Entered  at  the  postoffice  at  East  Aurora,  New  York,  fw  transmission  as  secood-dass  matter 
Copyright,  iwe,  by  filbert  Hubbard,  Editor  and  Pul«Hi^er 


THE  ANNUAL  ROYCROFT 

CONVENTION 

occtirs  at  East  Aurora,Erie  County,New  York, 
Jxily  First  to  Tenth,  Nineteen  Hundred  and 
Nine,  inclusive.  On  this  very  pleasant  occasion 
there  will  be  present  many  men  and  women 
of  quality  ;honest,  simple,  sincere  and  friendly 
folks  who  have  thoughts  and  know  how  to 
express  them.  QThe  Musical  Events  provided 
this  year  are  the  best  we  have  ever  had — which 
is  saying  much.  Two  Formal  Programs  daily, 
with  walks  and  talks  afield,  betimes,  and  much 
good-fellowship  and  flow  of  soul.  To  guests 
at  The  Roycroft  Inn  there  is  no  charge  for 
admittance  to  any  of  our  classes,  lectures  or 
entertainments.  QYou  are  invited  to  be 
present.  Q  Rates  at  The  Inn  are  Two  Dollars 
a  day  and  up,  according  to  apartments, 
American  Plan.  Q  A  postal  card,  stating  about 
when  you  will  arrive,  will  be  appreciated. 

THE      ROYCROFTERS 
EAST  AURORA,  ERIE  CO.,  NEW  YORK 


Little  Journeys 

LIBRARY      EDITION 

[LBERTHUBBARD  singlesout  from 
History,  Characters  that  but  yester= 
day  meant  to  you  only  a  Name,  a 
Picture,  or  a  piece  of  Statuary,  and 
presents  them  as  living,  breathing, 
pulsing  men  and  women.  Q  The  reader  of 
LITTLE  JOURNEYS  feels  himself  on  speaks 
ing  terms  with  Seneca,  sympathizes  with  the 
struggles  of  Wagner,  and  understands  why 
Coleridge  wrote  "Kubla  Khan."  Q  Quite  a 
few  of  these  LITTLE  JOURNEYS  have  been 
re=printed,  and  bound  bosarty  in  Limp 
Chamois,  silk=lined,  gilt  =  top,  with  silk= 
marker.  Six  LITTLE  JOURNEYS  in  each 
Volume  ^  THREE  DOLLARS  the  Volume. 

Vol.     6.  Morris,   Browning,  Tennyson,    Burns,    Milton, 

Johnson. 
Vol.     7.  Macaulay,  Byron,  Addison,  Southey,  Coleridge, 

Disraeli. 
Vol.     8.  Wagner,   Paganini,   Chopin,    Mozart,   Bach, 

Mendelssohn. 
Vol.     9.  Liszt,    Beethoven,  Handel,  Verdi,  Schumann, 

Brahms. 
Vol.  10.  Raphael,    Leonardo,    Botticelli,    Thorwaldsen, 

Gainsborough,  Velasquez. 
Vol.  11.  Corot,   Correggio,   Bellini,  Cellini,   Abbey, 

Whistler. 
Vol.  12.  Pericles,  Anthony,  Savonarola,  Luther,  Burke, 

Pitt. 


Little  Journeys,  Library  Edition — Cont. 


Vol.  13, 

Vol.  14, 

Vol.  15, 

Vol.  16 

Vol.  17 

Vol.  18 


Marat,  Ingersoll,   Patrick    Henry,    Starr   King, 

Beecher,  Phillips. 

Socrates,  Aristotle,  Spinoza,  Seneca,  Aurelius, 

Swedenborg. 

Kant,  Comte,  Voltaire,  Spencer,  Schopenhauer, 

Thoreau. 

Copernicus,    Newton,    Herschel,    Galileo, 

Humboldt,  Darwin. 

Haeckel,  Linnaeus,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Wallace, 

Fiske. 


Josiah  and  Sarah  Wedgwood,  W^illiam  Godwin 
and  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  Dante  and  Beatrice, 
John  Stuart  Mill  and  Harriet  Taylor,  Parnell 
and  Kitty  O'Shea,  Petrarch  and  Laura. 

Vol.  19.  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and  Elizabeth  Siddal, 
Balzac  and  Madame  Hanska,  Fenelon  and 
Madame  Guyon,  Ferdinand  Lassalle  and  Helen 
vonDonniges,  Lord  Nelson  and  Lady  Hamilton, 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  Fannie  Osbourne. 

Vol.  20.  John  Wesley,  Henry  George,  Garibaldi,  Richard 
Cobden,  Thomas  Paine,  John  Knox. 

Vol.  21.  John  Bright,  Bradlaugh,  Theodore  Parker, 
Oliver  Cromwell,  Anne  Hutchinson,  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau. 

Vol.  22.  Moses,  Confucius,  Pythagoras,  Plato,  King 
Alfred,  Friedrich  Froebel. 

Vol.  23.  Booker  T.  Washington,  Thomas  Arnold, 
Erasmus,  Hypatia,  St.  Benedict,  Mary  Baker 
Eddy. 

THE      ROYCROFTERS 


EAST    AURORA,    ERIE    CO.,     NEW    YORK 


The  Hubbard-Albertson 

D  E  B  A  T  E 

Resolved,  ''That  Christianity  Is  Declining" 

Affirmative — Elbert  Hubbard,  Foreman  of 
The  Roycroft  Shop,  East  Aurora,  New  York. 

Negative — Reverend  Doctor  C.  C.  Albertson, 
Pastor  Central  Presbyterian  Church,  Rochester. 

This  debate  took  place  at  Chickering 
Hall,  Boston,  Massachusetts,  Novem- 
ber the  Ninth,  Nineteen  Hundred  and 
Eight.  A  full  report  appeared  in  '*The 
Fra"  Magazine  for  January,  Nineteen 
Hundred  and  Nine.  As  all  extra  copies 
of  this  issue  of  ''The  Fra"  have  been 
sold,  and  a  demand  still  continues,  the 
Debate  has  been  reprinted  in  booklet 
form — Price,  Twenty-five  cents  each. 

THE      ROYCROFTERS 

Elast  Aurora,  Erie  County,  New  York 


lO/RMrY^ 


TO  THF  HOher^T^R 


lhF59  MEM 


I  iQHM  J  nrroi^ 


BQOK-BY-THB 


^&  g& 


EHaZHZBDBH 


PI^^M-^-M-l-XlPl^PEl 


IZBTSgJZag 


/ ''/ 


JOHN     JACOB     ASTOR 


□DHQUHZES 


The  man  who  makes  it  the  habit  of  his  life  to  go  to  bed  at  nine  o'clock, 
usually  gets  rich  and  is  always  reliable.  Of  course,  going  to  bed  does 
not  make  him  rich — I  merely  mean  that  such  a  man  will  in  all 
probability  be  up  early  in  the  morning  and  do  a  big  day's  work,  so 
his  weary  bones  put  him  to  bed  early.  Rogues  do  their  work  at  night. 
Honest  men  work  by  day.  It 's  all  a  matter  of  habit,  and  good  habits  in 
America  make  any  man  rich.  Wealth  is  a  result  of  habit. 

—JOHN  JACOB  ASTOR 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 


ICTOR  HUGO  says,  **When  you 
open  a  school,  you  close  a  prison.  ** 
J^  This  seems  to  require  a  little 
explanation.  Victor  Hugo  did  not 
have  in  mind  a  theological  school, 
nor  yet  a  young  ladies'  seminary, 
nor  an  English  boarding-school, 
nor  a  military  academy,  and  least 
of  all  a  parochial  institute.  What 
he  was  thinking  of  was  a  school 
where  people — young  and  old — 
were  taught  to  be  self-respecting, 
self-reliant  and  efficient — to  care  for  themselves,  to  help  bear 
the  burdens  of  the  world,  to  assist  themselves  by  adding  to  the 
happiness  of  others. 

Victor  Hugo  fully  realized  that  the  only  education  that  serves 
is  the  one  that  increases  human  efficiency,  not  the  one  that 
retards  it.  An  education  for  honors,  ease,  medals,  degrees, 
titles,  position— immunity — may  tend  to  exalt  the  individual 
ego,  but  it  weakens  the  race  and  its  gain  on  the  whole  is  nil. 
^  Men  are  rich  only  as  they  give.  He  who  gives  great  service, 
gets  great  returns.  Action  and  reaction  are  equal,  and  the 
radiatory  power  of  the  planets  balances  their  attraction.  The 
love  you  keep  is  the  love  you  give  away. 
A  bumptious  colored  person  wearing  a  derby  tipped  over  one 
eye,  and  a  cigar  in  his  mouth  pointing  to  the  northwest, 
walked  into  a  hardware  store  and  remarked,  "Lemme  see 
your  razors." 

167 


JOHN  xhe  clerk  smiled  pleasantly  and  asked,  **Do  you  want  a 
J.  ASTOR  razor  to  shave  with?'* 

"Naw,"  said  the  colored  person,  " — for  social  purposes." 
^  An  education  for  social  purposes  is  n*t  of  any  more  use  than 
a  razor  purchased  for  a  like  use.  An  education  which  merely 
fits  a  person  to  prey  on  society,  and  occasionally  slash  it  up, 
is  a  predatory  preparation  for  a  life  of  uselessness,  and 
closes  no  prison.  Rather  it  opens  a  prison  and  takes  captive 
at  least  one  man.  The  only  education  that  makes  free  is  the 
one  that  tends  to  human  efficiency.  Teach  children  to  work, 
play,  laugh,  fletcherize,  study,  think,  and  yet  again — work, 
and  we  will  raze  every  prison. 

There  is  only  one  prison,  and  its  name  is  Inefficiency.  Amid 
the  bastions  of  this  bastile  of  the  brain  the  guards  are  Pride, 
Pretense,  Greed,  Gluttony,  Selfishness. 
Increase  human  efficiency  and  you  set  the  captives  free. 
"The  Teutonic  tribes  have  captured  the  world  because  of 
their  efficiency,"  says  Lecky  the  historian. 
He  then  adds  that  he  himself  is  a  Celt. 
The  two  statements  taken  together  reveal  Lecky  to  be  a  man 
without  prejudice.  When  the  Irish  tell  the  truth  about  the 
Dutch  the  millennium  approaches. 

Should  the  quibbler  arise  and  say  that  the  Dutch  are  not 
Germans,  I  will  reply,  true,  but  the  Germans  are  Dutch — 
at  least  they  are  of  Dutch  descent. 

The  Germans  are  great  simply  because  they  have  the  homely 
and  indispensable  virtues  of  prudence,  patience  and  industry. 
^  There  is  no  copyright  on  these  qualities.  God  can  do  many 
things,  but  so  far.  He  has  never  been  able  to  make  a  strong 
race  of  people  and  leave  these  ingredients  out  of  the  formula. 
i68 


Q  As  a  nation,  Holland  first  developed  them  so  that  they  J*-'"^ 
became  the  characteristic  of  the  whole  people.  J*  -'^STOR 

It  was  the  slow,  steady  stream  of  Hollanders  pushing  south- 
ward that  civilized  Germany. 

Music  as  a  science  was  born  in  Holland.  The  grandfather  of 
Beethoven  was  a  Dutchman. 
Gutenberg's  forebears  were  from  Holland. 
And  when  the  Hollanders  had  gone  clear  through  Germany, 
and  then  traversed  Italy,  and  came  back  home  by  way  of 
Venice,  they  struck  the  rock  of  spiritual  resources  and  the 
waters  gushed  forth. 

Since  Rembrandt  carried  portraiture  to  the  point  of  perfec- 
tion, two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  Holland  has  been  a 
land  of  artists — and  it  is  so  even  unto  this  day. 
John  Jacob  Astor  was  born  of  a  Dutch  family  that  had 
migrated  down  to  Heidelberg  from  Antwerp.  Through  some 
strange  freak  of  atavism  the  father  of  the  boy  bred  back,  and 
was  more  or  less  of  a  stone-age  cave-dweller.  He  was  a 
butcher  by  trade,  in  the  little  town  of  Waldorf,  a  few  miles 
from  Heidelberg.  A  butcher's  business  then  was  to  travel 
around  and  kill  the  pet  pig,  or  sheep,  or  cow  that  the  tender- 
hearted owners  dare  not  harm.  The  butcher  was  a  pariah,  a 
sort  of  unofficial,  industrial  hangman. 
At  the  same  time  he  was  more  or  less  of  a  genius,  for  he 
climbed  steeples,  dug  wells,  and  did  all  kinds  of  disagreeable 
jobs  that  needed  to  be  done,  and  from  which  sober  and 
cautious  men  shrank  like  unwashed  wool. 
One  such  man — a  German,  too — lives  in  East  Aurora.  I 
joined  him,  accidentally,  in  walking  along  a  country  road, 
the  other  day.  He  carried  a  big  basket  on  his  arm,  and  was 

169 


JOHN  peacefully  smoking  a  big  Dutch  pipe.  We  talked  of  music  and 
J.  ASTOR  ^®  ^^^  regretting  the  decline  of  a  taste  for  Bach,  when  he 
shifted  the  basket  to  the  other  arm. 
"What  have  you  in  the  basket?"  I  asked. 
And  here  is  the  answer,  "Noddings— but  dynamite.  I  vas 
going  up  on  der  hill,  already,  to  blow  me  oud  some  stumps 
oud."  And  I  suddenly  bethought  me  of  an  engagement  I  had 
at  the  village. 


OHN  JACOB  ASTOR  was  the 
youngest  of  four  sons,  and  as 
many  daughters.  The  brothers 
ran  away  early  in  life,  and  went  to 
sea  or  joined  the  army.  One  of 
these  boys  came  to  America,  and 
followed  his  father's  trade  of 
butcher  Jt>  j/i 

Jacob  Astor,  the  happy  father  of 
John  Jacob,  used  to  take  the  boy 
with  him  on  his  pig-killing  expedi- 
tions. This  for  two  reasons — one, 
so  the  lad  would  learn  a  trade,  and  the  other  to  make  sure 
that  the  boy  did  not  run  away. 

Parents  who  hold  their  children  by  force  have  a  very  slender 
claim  upon  them.  The  pastor  of  the  local  Lutheran  Church 
took  pity  on  this  boy,  who  had  such  disgust  for  his  father's 
trade  and  hired  him  to  work  in  his  garden  and  run  errands. 
170 


q  The  intelligence  and  alertness  of  the  lad  made  him  look  JOHN 
like  good  timber  for  a  minister.  J.  ASTOR 

He  learned  to  read  and  was  duly  confirmed  as  a  member  of 
the  church. 

Under  the  kindly  care  of  the  village  parson  John  Jacob  grew 
in  mind  and  body — his  estate  was  to  come  later.  When  he 
was  seventeen,  his  father  came  and  made  a  formal  demand 
for  his  services.  The  young  man  must  take  up  his  father's 
work  of  butchering. 

That  night  John  Jacob  walked  out  of  Waldorf  by  the  wan 
light  of  the  moon,  headed  for  Antwerp.  He  carried  a  big  red 
handkerchief  in  which  his  worldly  goods  were  knotted,  and  in 
his  heart  he  had  the  blessings  of  the  Lutheran  clergyman, 
who  walked  with  him  for  half  a  mile,  and  said  a  prayer  at 
parting  J^  ^ 

To  have  youth,  high  hope,  right  intent,  health  and  a  big  red 
handkerchief  is  to  be  greatly  blessed. 
John  Jacob  got  a  job  next  day  as  oarsman  on  a  lumber  raft. 
^  He  reached  Antwerp  in  a  week.  There  he  got  a  job  on  the 
docks  as  a  laborer.  The  next  day  he  was  promoted  to  checker- 
off.  The  captain  of  a  ship  asked  him  to  go  to  London  and 
figure  up  the  manifests  on  the  way.  He  went. 
The  captain  of  the  ship  recommended  him  to  the  company  in 
London,  and  the  boy  was  soon  piling  up  wealth  at  the  rate  of  a 
guinea  a  month. 

In  September,  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Eighty-three,  came 
the  news  to  London  that  George  Washington  had  sur- 
rendered. In  any  event,  peace  had  been  declared — Corn- 
wallis  had  forced  the  issue,  so  the  Americans  had  stopped 
fighting  ^  ^ 

171 


TOHN    ^  ^^**^®  ^^*®^  ^*  ^^^  given  out  that  England  had  given  up  her 
J.  ASTOR    American  Colonies,  and  they  were  free. 

Intuitively  John  Jacob  Astor  felt  that  the  **New  World"  was 
the  place  for  him.  He  bought  passage  on  a  sailing  ship  bound 
for  Baltimore,  at  a  cost  of  five  pounds.  He  then  fastened  five 
pounds  in  a  belt  around  his  waist,  and  with  the  rest  of  his 
money — after  sending  two  pounds  home  to  his  father,  with  a 
letter  of  love — bought  a  dozen  German  flutes. 
He  had  learned  to  play  on  this  instrument  with  proficiency, 
and  in  America  he  thought  there  would  be  an  opening  for 
musicians  and  musical  instruments. 
John  Jacob  was  then  nearly  twenty  years  of  age. 
The  ship  sailed  in  November,  but  did  not  reach  Baltimore 
until  the  middle  of  March,  having  to  put  back  to  sea  on  account 
of  storms  when  within  sight  of  the  Chesapeake.  Then  a 
month  was  spent  later  hunting  for  the  Chesapeake.  There 
was  plenty  of  time  for  flute-playing  and  making  of  plans. 
^  On  board  ship  he  met  a  German,  twenty  years  older  than 
himself,  who  was  a  fur  trader  and  had  been  home  on  a  visit. 
^  John  Jacob  played  the  flute  and  the  German  friend  told 
stories  of  fur  trading  among  the  Indians. 
Young  Astor*s  curiosity  was  excited.  The  Waldorf-Astoria 
plan  of  flute-playing  was  forgotten.  He  fed  on  fur  trading. 
^  The  habits  of  the  animals,  the  value  of  their  pelts,  the 
curing  of  the  furs,  their  final  market,  was  all  gone  over  again 
and  again.  The  two  extra  months  at  sea  gave  him  an  insight 
into  a  great  business  and  he  had  the  time  to  fletcherize  his 
ideas.  He  thought  about  it — wrote  about  it  in  his  diary,  for 
he  was  at  the  journal-age.  Wolves,  bears  badgers,  minks, 
and  muskrats,  filled  his  dreams. 
172 


Arriving  in  Baltimore  he  was  disappointed  to  learn  that  there  joHN 
were  no  fur  traders  there.  He  started  for  New  York.  j    aSTOR 

Here  he  found  work  with  a  certain  Robert  Bowne,  a  Quaker, 
who  bought  and  sold  furs. 

Young  Astor  set  himself  to  learn  the  business — every  part  of 
it.  He  was  always  sitting  on  the  curb  at  the  door  before  the 
owner  got  around  in  the  morning,  carrying  a  big  key  to  open 
the  warehouse.  He  was  the  last  to  leave  at  night.  He  pounded 
furs  with  a  stick,  salted  them,  sorted  them,  took  them  to  the 
tanners,  brought  them  home. 
He  worked,  and  as  he  worked,  learned. 
To  secure  the  absolute  confidence  of  a  man,  obey  him.  Only 
thus  do  you  get  him  to  lay  aside  his  weapons,  be  he  friend  or 
enemy  ^  ^ 

Any  dullard  can  be  waited  on  and  served,  but  to  serve  requires 
judgment,  skill,  tact,  patience  and  industry. 
The  qualities  that  make  a  youth  a  good  servant  are  the  basic 
ones  for  mastership.  Astor*s  alertness,  willingness,  loyalty, 
and  ability  to  obey,  delivered  his  employer  over  into  his  hands. 
^  Robert  Bowne,  the  good  old  Quaker,  insisted  that  Jacob 
should  call  him  Robert;  and  from  boarding  the  young  man 
with  a  near-by  war  widow  who  took  cheap  boarders,  Bowne 
took  young  Astor  to  his  own  house,  and  raised  his  pay  from 
two  dollars  a  week  to  six. 

Bowne  had  made  an  annual  trip  to  Montreal  for  many  years, 
^  Montreal  was  the  metropolis  for  furs.  Bowne  went  to 
Montreal  himself  because  he  did  not  know  of  any  one  he 
could  trust  to  carry  the  message  to  Garcia.  Those  who  knew 
furs  and  had  judgment  were  not  honest,  and  those  who  were 
honest  did  not  know  furs.  Honest  fools  are  really  no  better 

173 


JOHN  than  rogues,  as  far  as  practical  purposes  are  concerned. 
J.  ASTOR  Bowne  once  found  a  man  who  was  honest  and  also  knew 
furs,  but  alas!  he  had  a  passion  for  drink,  and  no  prophet 
could  foretell  his  **  periodic, "  until  after  it  occurred. 
Young  Astor  had  been  with  Bowne  only  a  year.  He  spoke 
imperfect  English,  but  he  did  not  drink  nor  gamble,  and  he 
knew  furs  and  was  honest. 

Bowne  started  him  off  for  Canada  with  a  belt  full  of  gold; 
his  only  weapon  was  a  German  flute  that  he  carried  in  his 
hand.  Bowne  being  a  Quaker  did  not  believe  in  guns.  Flutes 
were  a  little  out  of  his  line,  too,  but  he  preferred  them  to 
flintlocks  ^  ^ 

John  Jacob  Astor  ascended  the  Hudson  River  to  Albany,  and 
then  with  pack  on  his  back,  struck  north,  alone,  through  the 
^  forest  for  Lake  Champlain.  As  he  approached  an  Indian 

settlement  he  played  his  flute.  The  aborigines  showed  no 
disposition  to  give  him  the  hook.  He  hired  Indians  to  paddle 
him  up  to  the  Canadian  border.  He  reached  Montreal. 
The  fur  traders  there  knew  Bowne  as  a  very  sharp  buyer,  and 
so  had  their  quills  out  on  his  approach.  But  young  Astor  was 
seemingly  indifferent.  His  manner  was  courteous  and  easy. 
^  He  got  close  to  his  man,  and  took  his  pick  of  the  pelts  at 
fair  prices.  He  expended  all  of  his  money,  and  even  bought  on 
credit,  for  there  are  men  who  always  have  credit. 
Young  Astor  found  Indian  nature  to  be  simply  human  nature. 
fl  The  savage  was  a  man,  and  courtesy,  gentleness  and  fairly 
good  flute-playing  soothed  his  savage  breast.  Astor  had  beads 
and  blankets,  a  flute  and  a  smile.  The  Indians  carried  his 
goods  by  relays  and  then  passed  him  on  with  guttural 
certificates  as  to  character,  to  other  red  men,  and  at  last  he 
174 


reached  New  York  without  the  loss  of  a  pelt  or  the  dampening  JOHN 
of  his  ardor.  j.  ASTOR 

Bowne  was  delighted.  To  young  Astor  it  was  nothing.  He  had 
in  his  blood  the  success  corpuscle.  He  might  have  remained 
with  Bowne  and  become  a  partner  in  the  business,  but 
Bowne  had  business  limitations  and  Astor  had  n't. 
So  after  a  three  years'  apprenticeship,  Astor  knew  all  that 
Bowne  did  and  all  he  himself  could  imagine  besides.  So  he 
resigned  .^  J^ 

In  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Eighty-six,  John  Jacob  Astor  be- 
gan business  on  his  own  account  in  a  little  store  on  Water 
Street,  New  York.  There  was  one  room  and  a  basement.  He 
had  saved  a  few  hundred  dollars;  his  brother,  the  butcher, 
had  loaned  him  a  few  hundred  more,  and  Robert  Bowne  had 
contributed  a  bale  of  skins  to  be  paid  for  **at  thy  own  price 
and  thy  own  convenience." 

Astor  had  made  friends  with  the  Indians  up  the  Hudson  clear 
to  Albany,  and  they  were  acting  as  recruiting  agents  for  him. 
He  was  a  bit  boastful  of  the  fact  that  he  had  taught  an 
Indian  to  play  the  flute,  and  anyway  he  had  sold  the  savage 
the  instrument  for  a  bale  of  beaver  pelts,  with  a  bearskin 
thrown  in  for  good  measure.  It  was  a  musical  achievement 
as  well  as  a  commercial  one. 

Having  collected  several  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  furs  he 
shipped  them  to  London  and  embarked  as  a  passenger  in  the 
steerage.  The  trip  showed  him  that  ability  to  sell  was  quite 
as  necessary  as  the  ability  to  buy — a  point  which  with  all  of 
his  shrewdness  Bowne  had  never  guessed. 
In  London  furs  were  becoming  a  fad.  Astor  sorted  and  sifted 
his  buyers,  as  he  had  his  skins.  He  himself  dressed  in  a  suit 

175 


JOHN  Qf  fur  and  thus  proved  his  ability  as  an  advertiser.  He  picked 
J.  ASTOR  his  men  and  charged  all  the  traffic  would  bear.  He  took 
orders,  on  sample,  from  the  nobility  and  sundry  of  the  gentry, 
and  thereby  cut  the  middleman.  All  of  the  money  he  received 
for  his  skins,  he  invested  in  "Indian  Goods" — colored  cloth, 
beads,  blankets,  knives,  axes,  and  musical  instruments. 
His  was  the  first  store  in  New  York  that  carried  a  stock  of 
musical  instruments.  These  he  sold  to  savages,  and  also  he 
supplied  the  stolid  Dutch  the  best  of  everything  in  this 
particular  line  from  a  bazoo  to  a  Stradivarius  violin. 
When  he  got  back  to  New  York,  he  at  once  struck  out 
through  the  wilderness  to  buy  furs  of  the  Indians,  or  better 
still,  to  interest  them  in  bringing  furs  to  him.  ^  He  knew  the 
value  of  friendship  in  trade  as  no  man  of  the  time  did. 
He  went  clear  through  to  Lake  Erie,  down  to  Niagara  Falls, 
along  Lake  Ontario,  across  to  Lake  Champlain  and  then  down 
the  Hudson.  He  foresaw  the  great  city  of  Buffalo,  and 
Rochester  as  well,  only  he  said  that  Rochester  would 
probably  be  situated  directly  on  the  Lake.  But  the  water- 
power  of  the  Genesee  Falls  proved  a  stronger  drawing  power 
than  the  Lake  Front.  He  prophesied  that  along  the  banks  of 
the  Niagara  Falls  would  be  built  the  greatest  manufacturing 
city  in  the  world.  There  were  flour-mills  and  sawmills  there 
then.  The  lumber  first  used  in  building  the  city  of  Buffalo 
was  brought  from  the  sawmills  at  "The  Falls." 
Electric  power,  of  course,  was  then  a  thing  unguessed,  but 
Astor  prophesied  the  Erie  Canal,  and  made  good  guesses  as 
to  where  prosperous  cities  would  appear  along  its  line. 
In  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Ninety,  John  Jacob  Astor  mar- 
ried Sarah  Todd.  Her  mother  was  a  Brevoort,  and  it  was 
176 


brought  about  by  her  coming  to  Astor  to  buy  furs  with  which 
to  make  herself  a  coat.  Her  ability  to  judge  furs  and  make 
them  up  won  the  heart  of  the  dealer.  The  marriage  brought 
young  Astor  into  "the  best  Dutch  New  York  society,"  a 
combination  that  was  quite  as  exclusive  then  as  now. 
This  marriage  was  a  business  partnership  as  well  as  marital, 
and  proved  a  success  in  every  way.  Sarah  was  a  worker,  with 
all  the  good  old  Dutch  qualities  of  patience,  persistence, 
industry  and  economy.  When  her  husband  went  on  trips  she 
kept  store.  She  was  the  only  partner  in  which  he  ever  had 
implicit  faith.  And  faith  is  the  first  requisite  in  success. 
Captain  Cook  had  skirted  the  Pacific  Coast  from  Cape  Horn 
to  Alaska,  and  had  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  fur-dealing 
and  fur-wearing  world  the  sea-otter  of  the  Northern  Pacific. 
^  He  also  gave  a  psychological  prophetic  glimpse  of  the 
insidious  sealskin  sacque. 

In  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Ninety,  a  ship  from  the  Pacific 
brought  a  hundred  otterskins  to  New  York.  The  skins  were 
quickly  sold  to  London  buyers  at  exorbitant  prices. 
The  nobility  wanted  sea-otter,  or  **  Royal  American  Ermine, " 
as  they  called  it.  The  scarcity  boomed  the  price.  Ships  were 
quickly  fitted  out  and  dispatched.  Boats  bound  for  the  whale 
fisheries  were  diverted,  and  New  Bedford  had  a  spasm  of 
jealousy.  ^  Astor  encouraged  these  expeditions,  but  at  first 
invested  no  money  in  them,  as  he  considered  them  **  extra 
hazardous. "  He  was  not  a  speculator. 


JOHN 

J.  ASTOR 


177 


JOHN 
ASTOR 


NTIL  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred, 
Astor  lived  over  his  store  in  Water 
Street,  but  he  then  moved  to  the 
plain  and  modest  house  at  Two 
Hundred  and  Twenty-three  Broad- 
way, on  the  site  of  the  old  Astor 
House.  Here  he  lived  for  twenty- 
five  years. 

The  fur  business  was  simple  and 
very  profitable.  Astor  now  was 
confining  himself  mostly  to  beaver- 
skins.  He  fixed  the  price  at  one 
dollar,  to  be  paid  to  the  Indians  or  trappers.  It  cost  fifty 
cents  to  prepare  and  transport  the  skin  to  London.  There  it 
was  sold  at  from  five  to  ten  dollars.  All  of  the  money  received 
for  skins  was  then  invested  in  English  merchandise,  which 
was  sold  in  New  York  at  a  profit.  In  Eighteen  Hundred,  Astor 
owned  three  ships  which  he  had  bought  so  as  to  absolutely 
control  his  trade.  Ascertaining  that  London  dealers  were 
reshipping  furs  to  China,  early  in  the  century  he  dispatched 
one  of  his  ships  directly  to  the  Orient,  loaded  with  furs,  with 
explicit  written  instructions  to  the  captain  as  to  what  the 
cargo  should  be  sold  for.  The  money  was  to  be  invested  in  teas 
and  silks.  ^  The  ship  sailed  away,  and  had  been  gone  a  year. 
^  No  tidings  had  come  from  her. 

Suddenly  a  messenger  came  with  news  that  the  ship  was  in 
the  bay.  We  can  imagine  the  interest  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Astor 
as  they  locked  their  store  and  ran  to  the  Battery.  Sure  enough, 
it  was  their  ship,  riding  gently  on  the  tide,  snug,  strong  and 
safe  as  when  she  had  left. 
178 


The  profit  on  this  one  voyage  was  seventy  thousand  dollars.  JOHN 
By  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ten,  John  Jacob  Astor  was  worth  j  aSTOR 
two  million  dollars.  He  began  to  invest  all  his  surplus  money 
in  New  York  real  estate.  He  bought  acreage  property  in  the 
vicinity  of  Canal  Street.  Next  he  bought  Richmond  Hill,  the 
estate  of  Aaron  Burr.  It  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  just  above  Twenty-third  Street.  He  paid  for  the  land 
a  thousand  dollars  an  acre.  People  said  Astor  was  crazy. 
In  ten  years  he  began  to  sell  lots  from  the  Richmond  Hill 
property  at  the  rate  of  five  thousand  dollars  an  acre.  Fortu- 
nately for  his  estate  he  did  not  sell  much  of  the  land  at  this 
price,  for  it  is  this  particular  dirt  that  makes  up  that  vast 
property  known  as  "The  Astor  Estate." 
During  the  Revolutionary  War,  Roger  Morris,  of  Putnam 
County,  New  York,  made  the  mistake  of  siding  with  the 
Tories. 

A  mob  collected,  and  Morris  and  his  family  escaped,  taking 
ship  to  England. 

Before  leaving,  Morris  declared  his  intention  of  coming  back 
as  soon  as  "the  insurrection  was  quelled." 
The  British  troops,  we  are  reliably  informed,  failed  to  quell 
the  insurrection. 
Roger  Morris  never  came  back. 

Roger  Morris  is  known  in  history  as  the  man  who  married 
Mary  Philipse.  And  this  lady  lives  in  history  because  she  had 
the  felicity  of  having  been  proposed  to  by  George  Washington. 
It  is  George  himself,  tells  of  this  in  his  Journal,  and  George 
you  remember  could  not  tell  a  lie. 

George  was  twenty-five,  he  was  on  his  way  to  Boston,  and 
entertained  at  the  Philipse  house,  the  Plaza  not  having 

179 


JOHN  ^jjgQ  ijggjj  built.  ^Mary  was  twenty,  pink  and  lissome.  She 
J.  ASTOR played  the  harpsichord.  Immediately  after  supper  George, 
finding  himself  alone  in  the  parlor  with  the  girl,  proposed. 
QHe  was  an  opportunist. 

The  lady  pleaded  for  time,  which  the  Father  of  his  Country 
declined  to  give.  He  was  a  soldier  and  demanded  immediate 
surrender.  A  small  quarrel  followed,  and  George  saddled  his 
horse  and  rode  on  his  way  to  fame  and  fortune. 
Mary  thought  he  would  come  back,  but  George  never  pro- 
posed to  the  same  lady  twice.  Yet  he  thought  kindly  of  Mary 
and  excused  her  conduct  by  recording,  '*I  think  ye  ladye  was 
not  in  ye  moode." 

Just  twenty-two  years  after  this  bout  with  Cupid,  General 
George  Washington,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Continental 
Army,  occupied  the  Roger  Morris  Mansion  as  headquarters, 
the  occupants  having  fled.  Washington  had  a  sly  sense  of 
humor,  and  on  the  occasion  of  his  moving  into  the  mansion, 
remarked  to  Colonel  Aaron  Burr,  his  aide,  "I  move  in  here 
for  sentimental  reasons — ^^I  have  a  small  and  indirect  claim 
on  the  place. " 

It  was  Washington  who  formally  confiscated  the  property, 
and  turned  it  over  to  the  State  of  New  York  as  contraband  of 
war  t^  S' 

The  Morris  estate  of  about  fifty  thousand  acres  was  parceled 
out  and  sold  by  the  State  of  New  York  to  settlers. 
It  seems,  however,  that  Roger  Morris  had  only  a  life  interest 
in  the  estate  and  this  was  a  legal  point  so  fine  that  it  was  en- 
tirely overlooked  in  the  joy  of  confiscation.  Washington  was 
a  great  soldier,  but  an  indifferent  lawyer. 
John  Jacob  Astor  accidentally  ascertained  the  facts.  He  was 
i8o 


convinced  that  the  heirs  could  not  be  robbed  of  their  rights 
through  the  acts  of  a  leaseholder,  which,  legally  was  the 
status  of  Roger  Morris.  Astor  was  a  good  real  estate  lawyer 
himself,  but  he  referred  the  point  to  the  best  counsel  he 
could  find.  They  agreed  with  him.  He  next  hunted  up  the  heirs 
and  bought  their  quitclaims  for  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  ^  ^ 

He  then  notified  the  parties  who  had  purchased  the  land,  and 
they  in  turn  made  claim  upon  the  State  for  protection. 
After  much  legal  parleying  the  case  was  tried  according  to 
stipulation  with  the  State  of  New  York,  directly,  as  defendant 
and  Astor  and  the  occupants  as  plaintiffs.  Daniel  Webster 
and  Martin  Van  Buren  appeared  for  the  State,  and  an  array  of 
lesser  legal  lights  for  Astor. 

The  case  was  narrowed  down  to  the  plain  and  simple  point 
that  Roger  Morris  was  not  the  legal  owner  of  the  estate,  and 
that  the  rightful  heirs  could  not  be  made  to  suffer  for  the 
"treason,  contumacy  and  contravention"  of  another.  Astor 
won,  and  as  a  compromise  the  State  issued  him  twenty-year 
bonds  bearing  six  per  cent  interest,  for  the  neat  sum  of  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars — not  that  Astor  needed  the  money 
but  finance  was  to  him  a  game,  and  he  had  won. 


JOHN 

J.  ASTOR 


i8i 


JOHN 
ASTOR 


N  front  of  the  first  A.  T.  Stewart 
store  there  used  to  be  an  old 
woman  who  sold  apples.  Regard- 
less of  weather,  there  she  sat  and 
mumbled  her  wares  at  the  passer- 
by. She  was  a  combination  beggar 
and  merchant,  with  a  blundering 
wit,  a  ready  tongue  and  a  vocabu- 
lary unfit  for  publication. 
Her  commercial  genius  is  shown 
in  the  fact  that  she  secured  one 
good  paying  customer — Alexander 
T.  Stewart.  Stewart  grew  to  believe  in  her  as  his  spirit  of  good 
luck.  Once  when  bargains  had  been  offered  at  the  Stewart 
store  and  the  old  woman  was  not  at  her  place  on  the  curb, 
the  merchant-prince  sent  his  carriage  for  her  in  hot  haste 
"lest  offense  be  given."  And  the  day  was  saved. 
When  the  original  store  was  abandoned  for  the  Stewart 
"Palace"  the  old  apple  woman  with  her  box,  basket  and 
umbrella  were  tenderly  taken  along,  too. 
John  Jacob  Astor  had  no  such  belief  in  luck  omens,  portents, 
or  mascots  as  had  A.  T.  Stewart.  With  him  success  was  a 
sequence — a  result — it  was  all  cause  and  effect.  A.  T.  Stewart 
did  not  trust  entirely  to  luck,  for  he  too,  carefully  devised  and 
planned.  But  the  difference  between  the  Celtic  and  Teutonic 
mind  is  shown  in  that  Stewart  hoped  to  succeed,  while  Astor 
knew  that  he  would.  One  was  a  bit  anxious;  the  other 
exasperatingly  placid. 

Astor  took  a  deep  interest  in  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition. 
^  He  went  to  Washington  to  see  Lewis,  and  questioned  him 
182 


at  great  length  about  the  Northwest.  Legend  says  that  he  JOHN 
gave  the  hardy  discoverer  a  thousand  dollars,  which  was  a  J-  ASTOR 
big  amount  for  him  to  give  away. 

Once  a  committee  called  on  him  with  a  subscription  list  for 
some  worthy  charity.  Astor  subscribed  fifty  dollars.  One  of 
the  disappointed  committee  remarked,  **0h,  Mr.  Astor,  your 
son  William  gave  us  a  hundred  dollars." 
<*Yes,"  said  the  old  man,  "Put  you  must  remember  that 
William  has  a  rich  father.  '* 

Washington  Irving  has  told  the  story  of  Astoria  at  length.  It 
was  the  one  financial  plunge  taken  by  John  Jacob  Astor. 
And  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  failed,  the  whole  affair  does 
credit  to  the  prophetic  brain  of  Astor. 
"This  country  will  see  a  chain  of  growing  and  prosperous 
cities  straight  from  New  York  to  Astoria,  Oregon, "  said  this 
man  in  reply  to  a  doubting  questioner. 
He  laid  his  plans  before  Congress,  urging  a  line  of  army  posts, 
forty  miles  apart,  from  the  western  extremity  of  Lake 
Superior  to  the  Pacific.  "These  forts  or  army  posts  will  evolve 
into  cities, "  said  Astor,  when  he  called  on  Thomas  Jefferson, 
who  was  then  President  of  the  United  States.  Jefferson  was 
interested,  but  non-committal.  Astor  exhibited  maps  of  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  the  country  beyond.  He  argued  with  a 
prescience  then  not  possessed  by  any  living  man  that  at  the 
western  extremity  of  Lake  Superior  would  grow  up  a  great 
city.  Yet  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Seventy-six,  Duluth  was 
ridiculed  by  the  caustic  tongue  of  Proctor  Knott,  who  asked, 
"What  will  become  of  Duluth  when  the  lumber  crop  is  cut?'* 
Astor  proceeded  to  say  that  another  great  city  would  grow 
up  at  the  southern  extremity  of  Lake  Michigan.  General 

183 


JOHN  ^^earborn,  Secretary  of  War  under  Jefiferson  had  just  estab- 
T  ASTOR  ^^s^®^  ^^^*  Dearborn  on  the  present  site  of  Chicago.  Astor 
commended  this,  and  said :  "  From  a  fort  you  get  a  trading 
post,  and  from  a  trading  post  you  will  get  a  city. " 
He  pointed  out  to  Jefferson  the  site,  on  his  map,  of  the  Falls 
of  St.  Anthony.  "There  you  will  have  a  fort  some  day,  for 
wherever  there  is  water-power,  there  will  grow  up  mills  for 
grinding  grain  and  sawmills,  as  well.  This  place  of  power  will 
have  to  be  protected,  and  so  you  will  have  there  a  post  which 
will  eventually  be  replaced  by  a  city. "  Yet  Fort  Snelling  was 
nearly  fifty  years  in  the  future  and  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis 
were  dreams  undreamed. 

Jefferson  took  time  to  think  about  it  and  then  wrote  Astor 
thus,  "Your  beginning  of  a  city  on  the  Western  Coast  is  a 
great  acquisition,  and  I  look  forward  to  a  time  when  our 
population  will  spread  itself  up  and  down  along  the  whole 
Pacific  frontage,  unconnected  with  us,  excepting  by  ties  of 
blood  and  common  interest,  and  enjoying  like  us,  the  rights 
of  self-government." 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers  thought  land  that  lay  inward  from  the  sea 
as  valueless.  The  forest  was  an  impassible  barrier.  Later,  up 
to  the  time  of  George  Washington,  the  AUeghanies  were 
regarded  as  a  natural  barrier.  Patrick  Henry  likened  the 
Alleghany  Mountains  to  the  Alps  that  separated  Italy  from 
Germany  and  said,  "The  mountain  ranges  are  lines  that  God 
has  set  to  separate  one  people  from  another. " 
Later,  statesmen  have  spoken  of  the  ocean  in  the  same  way, 
as  proof  that  a  union  of  all  countries  under  an  international 
capital  could  never  exist. 

Great  as  was  Jefferson,  he  regarded  the  achievement  of 
184 


Lewis  and  Clarke  as  a  feat  and  not  an  example.  He  looked  jOHN 
upon  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  a  natural  separation  of  j  AS  TOR 
peoples  ** bound  by  ties  of  blood  and  mutual  interest"  but 
otherwise  unconnected.  To  pierce  these  mighty  mountains 
with  tunnels,  and  whisper  across  them  with  the  human  voice, 
were  miracles  unguessed.  But  Astor  closed  his  eyes  and  saw 
pack-trains,  mules  laden  with  skins,  winding  across  these 
mountains,  and  down  to  tide-water  at  Astoria.  There  his  ships 
would  be  lying  at  the  docks,  ready  to  sail  for  the  Far  East. 
James  J.  Hill  was  yet  to  come. 


COMPANY  was  formed,  and  two 
expeditions  set  out  for  the  mouth 
of  the  Columbia  River,  one  by 
land  and  the  other  by  sea. 
The  land  expedition  barely  got 
through  alive — it  was  a  perilous 
undertaking,  with  accidents  by 
flood  and  field  and  in  the  imminent 
deadly  breech. 

But  the  route  by  the  water  was 
feasible. 

The  town  was  founded  and  soon 
became  a  centre  of  commercial  activity.  Had  Astor  been  on 
thef  ground  to  take  personal  charge,  a  city  like  Seattle  would 
have  bloomed  and  blossomed  on  the  Pacific,  fifty  years  ago. 
But  power  at  Astoria  was  subdivided  among  several  little  men, 

185 


JOHN  who  wore  themselves  out  in  a  struggle  for  honors,  and  to  see 
J.  ASTOR  who  would  be  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  John  Jacob 
Astor  was  too  far  away  to  send  a  current  of  electricity  through 
the  vacuum  of  their  minds,  light  up  the  recesses  with  reason, 
and  shock  them  into  sanity.  Like  those  first  settlers  at 
Jamestown,  the  pioneers  at  Astoria  saw  only  failure  ahead, 
and  that  which  we  fear,  we  bring  to  pass.  To  settle  a  con- 
tinent with  men  is  almost  as  difficult  as  Nature's  attempt  to 
form  a  soil  on  a  rocky  surface. 

There  came  a  grand  grab  at  Astoria  and  it  was  each  for  him- 
self and  the  devil  take  the  hindermost— it  was  a  stampede. 
^  System  and  order  went  by  the  board.  The  strongest  stole 
the  most,  as  usual,  but  all  got  a  little.  And  England's  gain  in 
citizens  was  our  loss. 

Astor  lost  a  million  dollars  by  the  venture.  He  smiled  calmly 
and  said,  **The  plan  was  right,  but  my  men  were  weak,  that 
is  all.  The  gateway  to  China  will  be  from  the  northwest.  My 
plans  were  correct.  Time  will  vindicate  my  reasoning. " 
When  the  block  on  Broadway,  bounded  by  Vesey  and  Barclay 
Streets,  was  cleared  of  its  plain  two  story  houses,  preparatory 
to  building  the  Astor  House,  wise  men  shook  their  heads  and 
said,  **It's  too  far  uptown." 

But  the  free  bus  that  met  all  boats  solved  the  difficulty,  and 
gave  the  cue  to  hotel  men  all  over  the  world.  The  hotel  that 
runs  full  is  a  gold  mine.  Hungry  men  feed,  and  the  beautiful 
part  about  the  hotel  business  is  that  the  customers  are  hungry 
the  next  day — also  thirsty.  Astor  was  worth  ten  million,  but 
he  took  a  personal  delight  in  sitting  in  the  lobby  of  the  Astor 
House  and  watching  the  dollars  roll  into  this  palace  that  his 
brain  had  planned.  To  have  an  idea — to  watch  it  grow — to 
i86 


then  work  it  out,  and  see  it  made  manifest  in  concrete  sub-  JOHN 
stance,  this  was  his  joy.  The  Astor  House  was  a  bigger  J.  ASTOR 
hostelry  in  its  day  than  the  Waldorf-Astoria  is  now. 
Astor  was  tall,  thin,  and  commanding  in  appearance.  He  had 
only  one  hallucination,  and  that  was  that  he  spoke  the  Eng- 
lish language.  The  accent  he  possessed  at  thirty  was  with  him 
in  all  its  pristine  effulgence  at  eighty-five.  "Nopody  vould 
know  I  vas  a  Cherman — aind't  it?"  he  used  to  say.  He  spoke 
French,  a  dash  of  Spanish  and  could  parley  in  Choctaw, 
Ottawa,  Mohawk  and  Huron.  But  they  who  speak  several 
languages  must  not  be  expected  to  speak  any  one  language 
well  Ji>  Jt> 

Yet  when  John  Jacob  wrote  it  was  English  without  a  flaw. 
In  all  of  his  dealings  he  was  uniquely  honorable  and  upright. 
He  paid  and  he  made  others  pay.  His  word  was  his  bond.  He 
was  not  charitable  in  the  sense  of  indiscriminate  giving.  "To 
give  something  for  nothing  is  to  weaken  the  giver, "  was  one 
of  his  favorite  sayings.  That  this  attitude  protected  a  miserly 
spirit,  it  is  easy  to  say,  but  it  is  not  wholly  true.  In  his  later 
years  he  carried  with  him  a  book  containing  a  record  of  his 
possessions.  This  was  his  breviary.  In  it  he  took  a  very 
pardonable  delight.  He  would  visit  a  certain  piece  of  property, 
and  then  turn  to  his  book  and  see  what  it  had  cost  him  ten  or 
twenty  years  before.  To  reaHze  that  his  prophetic  vision  had 
been  correct  was  to  him  a  great  source  of  satisfaction. 
His  habits  were  of  the  best.  He  went  to  bed  at  nine  o'clock, 
and  was  up  before  six.  At  seven  he  was  at  his  office.  He  knew 
enough  to  eat  sparingly  and  to  walk,  so  he  was  never  sick. 
^  Millionaires  as  a  rule  are  woefully  ignorant.  Up  to  a 
certain  sum,  they  grow  with  their  acquisitions.  Then  they 

187 


JOHN  tjegin  to  wither  at  the  heart.  The  care  of  a  fortune  is  a  penalty 
J.  AS  TOR  I  advise  the  gentle  reader  to  think  twice  before  accumulating 
ten  millions. 

John  Jacob  Astor  was  exceptional  in  his  combined  love  of 
money  and  love  of  books.  History  was  at  his  tongue's  end, 
and  geography  was  his  plaything.  Fitz-Greene  Halleck  was 
his  private  secretary,  hired  on  a  basis  of  literary  friendship. 
Washington  Irving  was  a  close  friend,  too,  and  first  crossed 
the  Atlantic  on  an  Astor  pass.  He  banked  on  Washington 
Irving's  genius,  and  loaned  him  money  to  come  and  go,  and 
buy  a  house.  Irving  was  named  in  Astor's  will  as  one  of  the 
trustees  of  the  Astor  Library  Fund,  and  repaid  all  favors  by 
writing  "Astoria.'* 

Astor  died,  aged  eighty-six.  It  was  a  natural  death,  a  thing 
that  very  seldom  occurs.  The  machinery  all  ran  down  at  once. 
^  Realizing  his  lack  of  book  advantages,  he  left  by  his  will 
four  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  found  the  Astor  Library, 
in  order  that  others  might  profit  where  he  had  lacked. 
He  also  left  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  his  native  town  of 
Waldorf,  a  part  of  which  money  was  used  to  found  an  Astor 
Library  there.  God  is  surely  good,  for  if  millionaires  were 
immortal,  their  money  would  cause  them  great  misery  and 
the  swollen  fortunes  would  crowd  mankind,  not  only  'gainst 
the  wall,  but  into  the  sea.  Death  is  the  deliverer,  for  Time 
checks  power  and  equalizes  all  things,  and  gives  the  new 
generation  a  chance. 

Astor  hated  gamblers.  He  never  confused  gambling,  as  a 
mode  of  money  getting,  with  actual  production.  He  knew 
that  gambling  produces  nothing — it  merely  transfers  wealth, 
changes  ownership.  And  since  it  involves  loss  of  time  and 
i88 


energy  it  is  a  positive  waste.  ^Yet  to  buy  land  and  hold  it,  JO^N 
thus  betting  on  its  rise  in  value,  is  not  production,  either.  J-  ASTOR 
Nevertheless,  this  was  to  Astor,  legitimate  and  right. 
Henry  George  threw  no  shadow  before,  and  no  economist  had 
ever  written  that  to  secure  land  and  hold  it  unused,  awaiting 
a  rise  in  value,  was  a  dog-in-the-manger,  unethical  and 
selfish  policy.  Morality  is  a  matter  of  longitude  and  time. 
Astor  was  a  member  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  and 
yet  he  lived  out  his  days  with  a  beautiful  and  perfect  dis- 
belief in  revealed  religion. 

He  knew  enough  of  biology  to  know  that  religions  are  not 
"revealed" — they  are  evolved.  Yet  he  recognized  the  value 
of  the  Church  as  a  social  factor.  To  him  it  was  a  good  police 
system,  and  so  when  rightly  importuned  he  gave,  with  be- 
coming moderation,  to  all  faiths  and  creeds. 
A  couple  of  generations  back  in  his  ancestry  there  was  a 
renegade  Jew  who  loved  a  Christian  girl,  and  thereby  moulted 
his  religion.  When  Cupid  crosses  swords  with  a  priest,  religion 
gets  a  death  stroke.  This  stream  of  free  blood  was  the  inheri- 
tance of  John  Jacob  Astor. 

William  B.  Astor,  the  son  of  John  Jacob,  was  brought  up  in 
the  financial  way  he  should  go.  He  was  studious,  methodical, 
conservative,  and  had  the  good  sense  to  carry  out  the  wishes 
of  his  father.  His  son  John  Jacob  Astor  was  very  much  like 
him,  only  of  more  neutral  tint.  The  time  is  now  ripe  for 
another  genius  in  the  Astor  family.  If  William  B.  Astor 
lacked  the  courage  and  initiative  of  his  parent,  he  had  more 
culture,  and  spoke  English  without  an  accent.  The  son  of 
John  Jacob  Astor  second,  is  William  Waldorf  Astor,  who 
speaks  English  with  an  English  accent,  you  know. 

189 


JOHN    John  Jacob  Astor,  besides  having  the  first  store  for  the  sale 

J.  ASTOR    of   musical   instruments   in   America,    organized   the   first 

orchestra  of  over  twelve  players.  He  brought  over  a  leader 

from  Germany,  and  did  much  to  foster  the  love  of  music  in 

the  New  World. 

Every  worthy  Maecenas  imagines  that  he  is  a  great  painter, 
writer,  sculptor  or  musician,  side-tracked  by  material  cares 
thrust  upon  him  by  unkind  fate.  John  Jacob  Astor  once  told 
Washington  Irving  that  it  was  only  business  responsibility 
that  prevented  his  being  a  novelist;  and  at  other  times  he 
declared  his  intent  to  take  up  music  as  a  profession  as  soon  as 
he  had  gotten  all  of  his  securities  properly  tied  up.  And 
whether  he  worked  out  his  dreams  or  not,  there  is  no  doubt 
but  that  they  added  to  his  peace,  happiness  and  length  of 
days.  Happy  is  the  man  who  escapes  the  critics  by  leaving  his 
literary  masterpiece  in  the  ink. 


190 


SOCIALISM    AND    LABOR 


OU  have  heard  me  talk  about 
Elbert  Hubbard,  haven't  you?  I 
think  he  is  the  best  writer  in  the 
world,  and  the  clearest  thinker.  I 
don't  always  agree  with  him,  but 
then,  I  don't  always  agree  with 
myself.  I  revere  him  because  he 
says  what  sets  me  to  thinking,  and 
he  has  taught  me  more  than  any 
other  man  I  ever  read.  Of  course  I 
understand  the  risk  I  run  in 
admiring  a  man  that 's  alive  and 
liable  to  go  wrong ;  but  I  'm  tak- 
ing that  risk  with  my  eyes  open, 
with  the  sincere  hope  that  Fra  Elbertus  will  manage  to 
keep  straight  till  the  Reaper  comes.  He  publishes  **The 
Philistine"  and  LITTLE  JOURNEYS,  every  month,  and 
I  can  make  you  a  subscriber  to  these  two  for  ten  shillings  a 
year.  And  the  joke  is,  that  when  you  pay  your  subscription, 
the  Fra  sends  you  a  de  luxe  book  that  is  worth  the  ten  shillings. 
He  is  a  wonder.  He  has  a  big  place  at  East  Aurora,  New  York 
State,  and  the  next  time  I  go  home  I  must  surely  get  that  far 
to  see  the  place.  He  employs  about  five  hundred  hands,  under 
ideal  conditions ;  he  lives  the  life,  and  gets  thousands  of  others 
to  do  the  same.  Now,  I  want  to  tell  you  something  about  the 
Fra  Jt'  J> 


THE  Federation  of  Labor  has  declared  The  Roycroft  Shop 
at  East  Aurora,  on  the  Unfair  List.  And  I  'm  glad !  They 
did  that  two  years  ago,  but  the  Fra  just  found  it  out  by  an 
advertiser  calling  off,  and  declaring  that  the  Union  will  fix 
him  if  he  deals  with  a  shop  that  does  not  use  the  *' Union 
Label."  I  'm  glad  the  Fra  has  been  declared  a  scab,  because 


first,  the  Fra  is  a  friend  of  mine.  I  never  met  him,  but  you 
don't  need  to  meet  your  friends  at  all.  I  have  friends  who 
have  been  dead  thousands  of  years,  and  they  are  more  real 
to  me  than  many  of  the  folks  I  meet  every  day.  The  Fra  and 
I  are  friends,  even  if  we  never  meet.  I  'm  glad  they  have  boy- 
cotted him,  because  he  is  a  man  with  the  power  of  expression, 
with  a  soul  to  understand,  with  an  eye  to  see,  and  with  a 
heart  to  feel.  The  Fra  is  the  best  man  in  America  to  put  on 
the  Unfair  List,  because  he  can  tell  what  has  happened,  and 
his  story  will  appeal  to  thousands,  aye,  to  millions.  It  is  the 
best  thing  that  ever  happened  to  him,  for  as  soon  as  ever  I 
heard  of  it,  I  wanted  to  declare  my  friendship  for  him,  and 
to  say:  **Buck  up,  ole  man,  I  *m  your  backer." 


THE  Fra  says  that  the  reason  he  is  boycotted  is  that,  "The 
Roycrof  t  Shop  is  teaching  trades  to  an  unlimited  number 
of  boys  and  girls."  He  adds  further:  **Let  it  be  said  that  The 
Roycrof t  Shop  has  never  had  a  strike ;  that  the  wages  we  pay 
are  above  the  Union  Scale ;  that  the  conditions  under  which 
The  Roycrofters  work  are  better  than  any  Union  ever  de- 
manded or  imagined."  So  The  Federation  of  Labor  has  de- 
clared the  roy  craft  (the  king's  workers)  a  **scab  shop." 
^  Good,  so  let  it  be !  I  want  to  say  some  things  about  Unions 
in  general,  and  this  levelling  down  business,  in  particular. 
^  You  will  notice  that  I  headed  this  gossip,  "Socialism  and 
Labor."  I  wrote  that  before  I  started,  for  I  want  to  explain 
some  things  in  regard  to  my  views,  as  I  promised  "Austra- 
lienne  "  last  week.  When  a  man  asks  me  if  I  'm  a  Socialist  I 
answer  him  according  to  the  sort  of  man  I  think  he  is.  If  he 
is  a  Christian  Socialist  who  wants  to  level  all  men  up  to  be 
the  "Sons  of  God,"  then  I  'm  a  Socialist.  If  he  means — do  I 
want  to  level  all  men  down  to  the  same  stage,  where  we  shall 
all  be  alike,  then  I  say,  "No,  I  'm  not  a  Socialist. "  But  no  two 
men  mean  the  same  thing  when  they  use  the  same  word. 
I  'm  not  going  to  set  up  a  straw  man  for  the  sake  of  knocking 


him  down  again.  I  may  as  well  say,  here  and  now,  that  you 
can't  label  me.  No  union  label  will  fit  me.  I  *m  a  free  man,  or 
as  near  free  as  a  foolish  education  and  a  silly  world  will  allow 
me  to  be.  But  Labor  is  n't  the  same  as  Socialism !  Is  it?  You 
see,  I  *m  a  Labor  man,  if  it  means  a  man  that  labors ;  but  it 
means  something  else.  You  will  find  that  the  difference  be- 
tween Labor  and  Socialism  is  but  the  difference  between 
tweedle-dee  and  tweedle-dum.  But  as  very  few  men  are 
accurate  thinkers  we  are  under  the  impression  that  they  are 
different  things.  They  are  not ! 


THE  aim  of  the  Union  is  to  make  all  men  equal.  That  is  a 
noble  ideal.  The  aim  of  the  Union  is  that  there  shall  be 
no  very  rich,  and  no  very  poor,  but  that  all  men  shall  be 
brothers.  That  is  also  a  noble  ideal,  but  the  aim  of  Socialism 
— or  Labor,  call  it  which  you  like — is  to  abolish  all  the  moun- 
tains, and  reduce  us  all  to  a  dead  level.  It  aims  at  the  lazy 
people's  heavenly  ideal  of  eternal  peace  and  idleness,  and 
that  means  mental  degradation.  The  law  of  the  Overland 
is,  **eat  or  be  eaten."  I  think  it  is  a  hideously  cruel  law,  but 
I  'm  not  responsible  for  it.  It  was  there  when  the  human  race 
came  into  the  world,  and  it  will  be  there  till  the  human  race 
has  had  its  day  and  ceased  to  be.  We  are  what  we  were  born 
to  be,  to  an  enormous  extent,  and  the  levellers  are  what  they 
are,  owing  to  their  ignorance.  Life  itself  is  but  a  brief  con- 
vulsion between  two  eternities,  and  we  know  not  what  it 
means,  as  a  steady  thing.  Old  Saadi,  the  Persian,  remarked  a 
few  centuries  ago — 

Open  the  tombs  and  see  the  bones 

there  mixed  in  mockery! 
Which  dust  was  servant,  which  was 

lord?  open  the  tombs  and  see! 


THE  Federation  of  Labor  has  declared  The  Roycrof t  Shop  a 
scab  shop,  unless  it  comes  down  to  the  union  label,  and 

ill 


gives  itself  over,  soul  and  body,  to  the  domination  of  the 
Union.  That  is  the  simple  desire  of  socialism  and  labor,  to 
reduce  us  all  to  the  dead  level  of  mediocrity.  We  are  to  be  all 
of  one  blood,  all  brethren,  and  the  Ape  and  the  Tiger  are  to  be 
eliminated  by  the  union.  God  bless  the  union,  merry  gentle- 
men !  Don*t  laugh  at  it  though,  for,  mind  you,  the  ideal  is  a 
lovely  one.  But  there  is  no  hope  for  it,  because  when  one  race 
is  levelled  down  to  the  Union  platform,  a  more  virile  race 
will  come  along  and  sweep  it  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  If 
we  level  the  mountains,  we  shall  have  very  level  plains,  and 
Nature  will  not  have  levels  for  long.  The  volcano  and  the 
earthquake  are  forever  at  work,  and  eternal  motion  and 
movement  is  the  law  of  the  Universe.  Nothing  endures  but 
change!  Dead  levels  are  unthinkable.  Life  itself  is  exploita- 
tion, dominance,  destruction. 

LOOK  at  all  democracies,  all  forms  of  ** united"  workers. 
They  object  to  paying  for  brains.  If  the  wages  of  the 
men  are  eight  shillings  a  day,  they  would  refuse  to  give  a 
man  with  brains  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  for  supervision. 
^  We  are  to  be  all  full  privates  in  the  new  democracy,  and 
the  cry  is,  **Down  with  all  that 's  up, "  but  the  law  will  not  be 
contemned  of  any,  and  the  fact  that  the  Fra*s  shop  at  East 
Aurora  has  been  declared  a  scab  shop  will  open  the  eyes  of 
millions.  I  am  glad  that  my  friend  has  been  boycotted,  for  it 
will  help  us  to  understand  what  Unionism  means.  Listen  to 
the  Fra.  He  says:  **A  labor  union  may  do  good.  I  never  ask 
a  man  whether  he  belongs  to  a  union  any  more  than  I  would 
ask  if  he  belongs  to  a  church.  That  is  his  business.  I  most 
certainly  would  not  ask  him  to  renounce  his  union  unless  the 
union  were  trying  to  throttle  him.  Even  then  it  is  his  affair. 
But  certainly  we  will  not  be  dictated  to  by  men  with  less 
intelligence,  energy,  initiative  and  ambition  than  we  ourselves 
possess. "  Right,  Fra,  the  men  with  brains  and  initiative  must 
rule,  and  they  will  rule  in  spite  of  all  unions!  I  have  spoken. 
— R.  McMillan,  in  the  Sidney,  Australia,  "Journal." 
iv 


I 


^Y'When  writing  men  like  Gentile  Bellini,  William  Cazton, 
%^l  Benjamin  Franklin,  Horace  Walpole,  William  Morris  and 
^  Thomas  De  Vinne  felt  in  the  mood  to  exude  some  particu- 
larly hot  copy,  they  hiked  for  the  type-case  and  worked  their 
energy  up  into  a  galley  of  Good  Stuff.  They  setup  the  matter  as 
they  composed  it.  Thus  we  get  the  words  "composing-stick" 
and  "compositor."  Qln  those  days  the  printer  was  always  a  man 
of  considerable  literary  ability.  People  used  to  doff  their  hats 
when  they  met  him  on  the  street  and  address  "Mr.  Printer."  And 
as  a  follow-up  custom,  it  was  only  the  day  before  yesterday  that 
folks  stopped  saying  "Mr.  Editor."  <5  These  early  printer-authors 
had  pronounced  preferences  for  different  type  faces  and  families, 
and  the  adoption  or  rejection  of  these  various  choices  segregated 
all  shops  into  exponents  of  certain  "styles."  QEvery  print-shop 
now  has  its  particular  conception  of  what  constitutes  style  in 
typography.  No  two  offices  have  identical  views  on  this  subject, 
though  all  of  them  are  evolving  towards  an  Idea  which  had  its 
first  modern  impulse  in  The  Roycroft  Shop.  Q  The  beauty  and 
adaptability  of  this  Idea  found  for  it  considerable  favor,  and 
'  'Roycroft  Style"  is  now  a  well-known  phrase  in  commercial  print- 
ing circles.  But  the  best  printers  in  the  country  have  been  unable 
to  successfully  reproduce  "Roycroft  Style."  For  "Roycroft 
Style"  is  more  than  a  style,  it 's  an  Art— an  Art  born  of 
Artistic  Environment  and  developed  by  boys  and  girls 
working  under  conditions  which  approach  the  Ideal.  At  ^ 
The  Roycroft  Shop  we  produce  both  Art  and  Artists. 


If  You  Want  Printing  Done  Very  i  jq 
De  Lxixe,  Let  Us  Know  Your  Needs 


I 


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BACK  NUMBERS! 

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(DIFFERENT      DATES) 

STUDENTS  of  Current  Events,  also  Literary  Aspirants, 
read  THE  PHILISTINE  for  Vibes,  Vibrations  and 
Volts;  for  style  in  diction;  for  unbiased,  intelligent 
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decorated  THE  PHILISTINE  pages  during  the  past  ten 
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PHILISTINE  w&s  and  is  the  Advance  Agent  of  Mental 
Emancipation.  You  hear  the  Voice  of  Freedom  in  THE 
PHILISTINE,  q  TWENTY-FIVE  PHILISTINES  ARE 
A  LIBERAL  EDUCATION  ^  ^  J'  J'  ^  Ji>  Jt'  ^  J- Ji> 

The   Good  Stuff  Never   Grows   Old 

LITTLE  JOURNEYS  deal  with  the  Great  and  Near- 
Great  of  History.  They  tell  in  a  friendly,  confidential 
way,  the  hopes  and  fears,  the  achievements  and  the  dis- 
appointments, the  joys  and  the  sorrows  of  the  World's 
Elect.  A  hfe  is  a  wonderful  thing,  beheves  the  Fra,  and  not 
a  single  scene  in  the  panorama  is  without  its  use.  QTho 
preserving  identities,  he  introduces  a  flesh-and-blood  man, 
whose  struggles  are  your  struggles  and  whose  attainments 
are  your  attainments.  You  meet  the  Genius  on  a  Basis  of 
Equality.  Q'Tis  easy  to  tear  down,  to  destroy,  to  muck- 
rake—  Hubbard    upbuilds.    C^Sent^  the   Dollar    Today 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  New  York 


MBITION 
IS  NOT 
A  VICE 


OF   LITTLE 
PEOPLE 


MONTAIGNE 


LIFE  spent 


wor 


thil 


should    be 


measured  by  deeds, 
not  years  %  :p^  :5^  ^ 

SHERIDAN 


Vol.  25 


JULY,   MCMIX 


No.  1 


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TO  THg  HOME^Tff] 


IME^^  MEM 


BY  ELEER-r 


^^^FgQY^ 


PETER  COOPER 


NOMF  •  IMTQZH 

QEIEE3 


\//HKH-l9-3aggSlJZ 

EHSZHEE5EH  5^  5iJZ 


S  g  S  g  HESSZZnEH 


spppiRn-^  -M  •  i-:^ 


2B13SES0 


I 


T 


HE  BLPCK 
OF  GRANITE 
WHICH  IS  AN 
OBSTACLE 


IN  THE  PATHWAY  OF 
THE  WEAK,  BECOMES 
A  STEPPING-STONE  IN 
THE  PATHWAY  OF 
THE  STROHG-cARLYLE 


Ettterad  at  Uie  p<«taface  in  East  Aurora,  New  York,  tor  transmission  as  aecoud-claas  matter 
Copyright,  1»09,  by  Elbert  Hubbard,  Editor  and  Publisher, 


0iuiml  Conbention 

August  Twenty-third  to   September  First 


ARLY  last  September,  Professor  S.  L.  Barrow- 
Clough,  Master  Musician  of  Winnipeg,  and  his 
sixty-one  bonnie,  blue-eyed  Band  Boys  paid  us 
a  visit  here  in  East  Aurora.  QOut  on  the  Peri- 
style, underneath  an  Orange  Moon,  surrounded 
by  giant  trees,  these  men  played  to  the  greatest  audiences 
ever  assembled  in  East  Aurora.  QOver  three  thousand 
people.  Royal,  Loyal  Roycrofters,  gathered  to  greet  the 
Winnipeg  Band  J>  They  perched  on  the  Peristyle,  they 
carried  benches  down  around  the  Fountain  in  the  Court, 
they  overflowed  the  lawns,  clustered  about  the  Well  Sweep 
and  swarmed  the  Stone  Walls  and  Tree  Seats  in  the 
Orchard  like  Locusts  «^  Such  Music !  G[And  now,  Barrow- 
Clough  and  his  Premier  Performers  are  coming  back.  They 
have  accepted  our  Invitation;  they  will  bring  their  Instru- 
ments and  spend  a  week.  Q Other  Musicians,  Soloists, 
Vocalists  and  Troifpes  are  coming  too,  and  for  a  time  the 
Home  of  The  Roycrofters  will  be  transformed  into  a  Garden 
of  Harmony.  QSo  now  then  we  announce  a  Congress  of 
Musicians,  August  Twenty-third  to  September  First  «^ 
There  is  a  place  at  the  Roycroft  Festal  Board  for  every 
lover  of  Sweet  Sounds.  Only,  if  you  are  coming  you  had 
better  let  us  know  a  bit  beforehand   »^    ^  j^  j^  j^  ^ 


Cfje  a^opcrofterjs.  Cast  aiurora,  ^t^  |?orfe 


Inspirational  Little  Journeys 

LIMP-LEATHER    EDITION 

^TT  Progressive  Educators  consider  a  complete 
^ij  set  of  Little  Journeys  in  many  ways  superior 
to  a  four  years'  Course  in  College  English. 
Others  value  their  condensed  Historical  teach- 
ings; while  the  yield  to  the  literary  aspirant 
is  style  in  diction  and  virility.  ^Free  from  the 
Cumbersome  and  Conventional — Little  Jour- 
neys pulse  "with  interest.  Subjects  as  follows: 

Vol.     6.         Morris,   Browning,   Tennyson,   Burns,  Milton, 

Johnson. 
Vol.     7.         Macaulay,  Byron,  Addison,  Southey,  Coleridge, 

Disraeli.    ^ 
Vol.     8.         Wagner,     Paganini,     Chopin,    Mozart,    Bach, 

Mendelssohn. 
Vol.     9.         Liszt,   Beethoven,   Handel,   Verdi,   Schumann, 

Brahms. 
Vol.  10.         Raphael,    Leonardo,    Botticelli,   Thorwaldsen, 

Gainsborough,  Velasquez. 
Vol.  11.         Corot,    Correggio,    Bellini,    Cellini,    Whistler, 

Abbey. 
Vol.  12.         Pericles,  Anthony,  Savonarola,  Luther,  Burke, 

Pitt. 
Vol.  13.         Marat,   Ingersoll,  Patrick  Henry,  Starr   King, 

Beecher,  Phillips. 
Vol.  14.        Socrates,  Aristotle,  Spinoza,  Seneca,  Aurelius, 

Swedenborg. 
Vol.  15.        Kant,  Comte,  Voltaire,  Spencer,  Schopenhauer, 

Thoreau. 


INSPIRATIONAL  UHLE  JOURNEYS— Continued 

Vol.  16.  Copernicus,  Newton,  Herschel,  Galileo,  Hum- 
boldt, Darwin. 

Vol.  17.  Haeckel,  Linnaeus,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Wallace, 
Fiske. 

Vol.  18.  Josiah  and  Sarah  Wedgwood,  William  Godwin 
and  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  Dante  and  Beatrice, 
John  Stuart  Mill  and  Harriet  Taylor,  Parnell 
and  Kitty  O'Shea,  Petrarch  and  Laura. 

Vol.  19.  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and  Elizabeth  Siddal, 
Balzac  and  Madame  Hanska,  Fenelon  and 
Madame  Guyon,  Ferdinand  Lassalle  and  Helen 
von  Donniges,  Lord  Nelson  and  Lady  Hamilton, 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  Fannie  Osbourne. 

Vol.  20.  John  Wesley,  Henry  George,  Garibaldi,  Richard 
Cobden,  Thomas  Paine,  John  Knox. 

Vol.  21.  John  Bright,  Oliver  Cromwell,  Theodore  Parker, 
Bradlaugh,  Anne  Hutchinson,  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau. 

Vol.  22.  Moses,  Confucius,  Pythagoras,  Plato,  King 
Alfred,  Friedrich  Froebel, 

Vol.  23.  Booker  T.  Washington,  Thomas  Arnold,  Eras- 
mus, Hypatia,  St.  Benedict,  Mary  Baker  Eddy. 

The  above-named  Little  Journeys  have  been 
reprinted  on  Italian  Hand-made  paper,  and 
Bound  artfully  in  Limp  leather,  silk-lined,  gilt 
top,  with  silk  marker.  Six  Little  Journeys  in 
each  Volume — some  few  are  illumined  by  hand. 
THREE     DOLLARS     THE    VOLUME. 

THE  ROYCROFTERS 
East  Aurora,  Elrie  County,  New  York 


Poets,  like  painters  thus  unskilled  to  trace 

The  naked  nature  and  the  living  grace. 

With  gold  and  jewels  cover  every  part. 

And  hide  with  ornaments  their  want  of  art.— Pope 

Roycroft   Furniture 

THE 


r 


ANTITHESIS    OF    CHIPPENDALE 

'HE  men  who  make 
Roycroft  Furniture 
do  not  cover  theit  skill 
with  ornamentation. They 
do  not  permit  Rococo 
finishes  or  Rocaille  de- 
signs to  clutter  the  sur- 
face of  their  work.  Beds, 
Bookcases  and  Tables 
made  by  East  Aurora 
Craftsmen  never  border 
on  the  Baroque,  nor  do 
the  chairs  and  benches 
creak  beneath  the  Seats 
of  the  Mighty.  Q  Sturdy 
and  strong  as  the  Artists 
who  liberate  them  from 
the  log,  products  of  our 
Wood  Shop  please  those 
people  who  see  beauty  in 
utility  and  service.  Roy- 
croft Furniture  presages 
a 'day  when  Common- 
sense  shall  hold  sway  in  house  decoration — when  only  the 
things  are  considered  Best,  whose  Makers  dedicated  their 
work  to  Time.  Catalogue  on  Application  jIt  ^  Jt  jt  Jt  ji 
THE  ROYCROFTERS,    East  Aurora,   N.  Y. 


iic^umhY:^ 


[EHHEZHDHE^DB 


EE^ZHEH 


BY  ELBERT 


PETER  COOPER 


iB 


LOriE '  IMTOZB 


BOOK-BY-THB 


S|)Z  Ny  H I  \H  -J^^  3g  S  g 


SlgEn^T-  ni/RQRFI^g  ^g 


Sg  sgEEEzmiziTra  ^^  ^)Z 


M  •  ^  ■  M  ■  I  ^PlqPE 


/ 


// 


PETER     COOPER 


PETER    COOPER 


LET  our  schools  teach  the  nobility  of  labor,  and  the  beauty  of 
human   service,   but  the  superstitions   of  ages   past  —  never  I 
— PETER  COOPER,  Memorial   to  the  Legislature  of  New  York. 


LITTLE    JOURNEYS 


ETER  COOPER  was  born  in  New 
York  City  in  Seventeen  Hundred 
and  Ninety-one.  He  lived  to  be 
ninety-two  years  old,  passing  out 
in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Eighty- 
three  ^  Jt» 

He  was,  successively,  laborer, 
clerk,  mechanic,  inventor,  manu- 
facturer, financier,  teacher,  phi- 
lanthropist and  philosopher. 
If  Robert  Owen  was  the  world's 
first  modern  merchant,  Peter 
Cooper  was  America's  first  business  man.  He  seems  the  first 
prominent  man  in  the  United  States  to  abandon  that  legal 
wheeze,  **caveat  emptor."  In  fact,  he  worked  for  the  buyer, 
and  considered  the  other  man's  interests  before  he  did  his 
own.  He  practised  the  Golden  Rule,  and  made  it  pay,  while 
the  most  of  us  yet  regard  it  as  a  kind  of  interesting  experi- 
ment ^  J> 

I  have  said  a  few  oblique  things  about  city-bred  boys,  and 
city  people  in  general,  but  I  feel  like  apologizing  for  them 
and  doing  penance  when  I  think  of  restless,  tireless,  eager, 
brave,  honest  and  manly  Peter  Cooper. 
When  that  New  York  City  woman,  last  week,  observing  a 
beautiful  brass  model  of  an  Oliver  Plow  on  my  mantel  asked 
me,  "What  is  this  musical  instrument?"  she  proved  herself 
not  of  the  Peter  Cooper  tribe. 
She  was  the  other  kind — the  kind  that  seeing  the  poUywogs 


PETER  COOPER 

remarks,  **0h,  how  lovely — they  will  all  be  butterflies  next 
week!"  Or,  "Which  cow  is  it  that  gives  the  buttermilk?" 
a  question  that  once  made  Nathan  Straus  walk  on  his  hands. 
^Although  Peter  Cooper  was  born  in  New  York  City  and  had 
a  home  there  most  of  his  life,  he  loved  the  country,  and  for 
many  years  made  Sunday  sacred  for  the  woods  and  fields  jt 
Yet  as  a  matter  of  strictest  truth  let  it  be  stated  that,  although 
Peter  Cooper  was  born  in  New  York  City,  when  he  was  two 
years  old,  like  Bill  Nye,  he  persuaded  his  parents  to  move. 
The  family  gravitated  to  the  then  little  village  of  Peekskill, 
and  here  the  lad  lived  until  he  was  seventeen  years  old. 
Next  to  Benjamin  Franklin,  Peter  Cooper  was  our  all-round, 
educated  American.  His  perfect  health — living  to  a  great 
age — with  sanity  and  happiness  as  his  portion,  proves  him 
to  be  one  who  knew  the  laws  of  health  and  also  had  the  will 
to  obey  them.  He  never  ** retired  from  business" — if  he  quit 
one  kind  of  work  it  was  to  take  up  something  more  difficult. 
^  He  was  in  the  fight  to  the  day  of  his  death ;  and  always  he 
carried  the  flag  further  to  the  front. 

He  was  a  Free  Thinker  at  a  time  when  to  have  thoughts  of 
your  own  was  to  be  an  outcast.  His  restless  mind  was  no 
more  satisfied  with  an  outworn  theology  than  with  an  out- 
grown system  of  transportation. 

His  religion  was  blended  with  his  work  and  fused  with  his  life. 
^  He  built  the  first  railway  locomotive  in  America,  and  was 
its  engineer,  until  he  taught  others  how. 
He  rolled  the  first  iron  rails  for  railroads. 
He  made  the  first  iron  beams  for  use  in  constructing  fire- 

2 


PETER 


COOPER 


proof  buildings.  ^He  was  the  near  and  dear  friend  and 
adviser  of  Cyrus  W.  Field  and  lent  his  inventive  skill,  his 
genius  and  his  money,  to  the  laying  of  the  Atlantic  Cable ;  and 
was  the  President  for  eighteen  years  of  the  Atlantic  Cable 
Company. 

In  building  and  endowing  Cooper  Union,  he  outlined  a  system 
of  education,  so  beneficent  that  it  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  thinking  men  of  the  world.  And  it  is  even  now  serving  as 
a  model  upon  which  our  entire  public-school  system  will  yet 
be  founded — a  system  that  works  not  for  culture,  for  bric-a- 
brac  purposes,  but  for  character  and  competence.  A  what-not 
education  may  be  impressive  but  is  worthless  as  collateral  j> 
The  achievements  of  Peter  Cooper  make  the  average  success- 
ful man  look  like  a  pigmy. 

What  the  world  needs  is  a  few  more  Peter  Coopers — rich 
men  who  do  not  absolve  themselves  by  drawing  checks  for 
charity,  but  who  give  their  lives  and  inventive   skill   for 
human  betterment. 
Let  us  catch  up  with  Peter  Cooper. 


PETER 


COOPER 


OHN  COOPER,  the  father  of  Peter 
Cooper,  was  of  English  stock.  He 
was  twenty-one  years  old  in  that 
most  unforgettable  year,  Seven- 
teen Hundred  and  Seventy-six.  At 
the  first  call  to  arms,  he  enlisted  as 
a  minuteman.  He  fought  valiantly 
through  the  war,  in  the  field,  and 
in  the  fortifications  surrounding 
New  York  City,  and  came  out  of 
Freedom's  fight  penniless,  but  with 
one  valuable  possession — a  wife. 
C|  In  Seventeen  Hundred  and  Seventy-nine,  he  had  married  the 
daughter  of  General  John  Campbell,  his  commander,  who 
was  then  stationed  at  West  Point.  It  was  an  outrageous  thing 
for  a  sergeant  to  do,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  it  was  absolutely 
without  orders  or  parental  permission.  The  bride  called  it  a 
Cooper  union. 

The  Campbells,  very  properly,  were  Scotch,  and  the  Scotch 
have  a  bad  habit  of  thinking  themselves  a  trifle  better  than 
the  English.  Like  the  Irish,  they  regard  an  Englishman  with 
suspicion.  The  Scotch  swear  that  they  have  never  been  con- 
quered, certainly  not  by  J.  Bull,  who  has  always  been  quite 
willing  to  give  them  anything  they  ask  for. 
At  the  time  of  his  marriage,  Sergeant  Cooper  was  engaged  in 
the  laudable  business  of  looking  after  General  Campbell's 
horses,  and  also  making  garden  for  the  Campbell  family  ^  Jt> 


PETER 


COOPER 


N  the  gardening,  he  worked  under 
the  immediate  orders  of  Margaret 
Campbell.  After  hours,  the  Ser- 
geant used  to  play  a  piccolo,  and 
among  other  tuneful  lays  he  piped 
one  called,  "The  Campbells  Are 
Coming."  ^  Jt> 

It  was  on  one  such  musical  occa- 
sion that  the  young  couple  simply 
walked  off  and  got  married,  thus 
proving  a  point  which  I  have  long 
held,  to  wit:  Music  is  a  secondary 
love  manifestation. 

On  being  informed  of  the  facts.  General  Campbell  promptly 
ordered  that  Sergeant  John  Cooper  be  shot. 
Before  the  execution  could  take  place,  the  sentence  was 
commuted  to  thirty  days  in  the  guard-house.  After  serving 
one  day,  the  culprit  was  pardoned  on  petition  of  his  wife. 
In  a  month  he  was  made  a  Captain,  and  later  a  Lieutenant  jk 
The  business  of  a  soldier  is  not  apt  to  be  of  a  kind  to  develop 
his  mental  resources.  Soldiers  fight  under  orders;  and 
initiative,  production  and  economy  are  mere  abstractions  to 
your  man  of  the  sword.  A  soldier  has  but  two  duties  to  per- 
form, according  to  a  book  on  military  tactics  which  I  have 
been  reading.  These  duties  are  respectively:  to  destroy  the 
enemy,  and  to  evade  the  enemy.  This  is  the  sum  of  all  fight- 
ing, and  the  question  of  just  how  one  can  both  evade  the 
enemy  and  destroy  the  enemy,  and  the  further  theme  as  to 

5 


PETER  COOPER 

the  relative  importance  of  these  duties,  must  be  left  for  a 
later  discussion. 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  the  War,  John  Campbell  lost  the 
ability  to  become  a  civilian  of  the  first  rank. 
He  was  industrious  but  improvident ;  he  made  money  and  he 
lost  it.  He  had  a  habit  of  abandoning  good  inventions  for 
worse  ones.  The  ability  to  eliminate  is  good,  but  in  sifting 
ideas  let  us  cleave  to  those  that  are  workable,  until  Fate 
proves  there  is  something  really  better. 
Peter  Cooper  was  the  fifth  child  in  a  family  of  nine.  Bees 
know  the  secret  of  sex,  but  man  does  not.  Peter  Cooper's 
mother  thought  that  her  fifth  child  was  to  be  a  girl,  but  it  was 
not  until  after  the  boy  had  grown  to  be  a  man,  and  was 
proving  his  prowess,  that  his  parents  remembered  why  they 
had  called  him  Peter,  and  said,  **0n  this  rock  shall  our 
family  be  built." 

To  be  born  of  parents  who  do  not  know  how  to  get  on,  and 
be  one  of  a  big  family,  is  a  great  blessing.  We  are  taught  by 
antithesis  quite  as  much  as  by  injunction  and  direction.  And 
chiefest  of  all  we  are  taught  through  struggle,  and  not 
through  immunity  in  that  vacuum  called  complete  success. 
^  Peter  Cooper's  childhood  was  one  of  toil  and  ceaseless  en- 
deavor. Just  one  year  did  he  go  to  school,  just  one  year  in  all 
his  life,  and  then  for  only  half  a  day  at  a  time.  His  short 
ration  of  books  made  him  anxious  to  know — anxious  to 
learn — and  so  his  disadvantages  gave  him  a  thing  which 
college  often  fails  to  bestow,  that  is  the  Study  Habit.  And  the 
reason  he  got  it  was  because  he  wanted  to  go  to  school  and 
6 


P     "E      T      E      R 


COOPER 


could  not.  CIHappy  Peter  Cooper!  ^And  yet  he  never  really 
knew  that  many  a  youth  is  sent  to  school  and  dinged  at  by 
pedagogues,  until  examinations  become  a  nightmare,  and 
college  a  penalty  ^  Thus  it  happens  that  many  a  college 
graduate  is  so  rejoiced  on  getting  through  and  standing 
"on  the  threshold,"  that  he  never  looks  in  a  book  after- 
ward Ji  Of  such  a  one  we  can  properly  say,  **He  got  his 
education  in  college" — when  all  the  world  knows  that  the 
education  that  really  counts  is  that  which  we  get  out  of  Life. 


ETER  COOPER,  very  early  in  life, 
had  the  climbing  propensity. 
Later  it  developed  into  a  habit; 
and    shifting    ground    from    the 
physical  to  the  psychic  he  con- 
tinued to  climb  all  of  his  life. 
Also  he  made  others  climb,  for  no 
man  climbeth  by  himself  alone. 
At  twelve,  Peter  Cooper  proudly 
walked    the    ridge-pole    of    the 
family     residence,    to    the    great 
astonishment  and   admiration  of 
the  little  girls  and  the  jealousy  of  the  boys.  When  the  chil- 
dren would  run  in  breathlessly  and  announce  to  the  busy 

7 


PETER  COOPER 

mother,  "  Peter,  he  is  on  the  house ! "  the  mother  would  reply, 
**Then  he  will  not  get  drowned  in  the  Hudson  River!" 
At  other  times  it  was,  **  Peter,  he  is  swimming  across  the 
River!"  The  mother  then  found  solace  in  the  thought  that 
the  boy  was  not  in  immediate  danger  of  sliding  off  the  house 
and  breaking  his  neck. 

Once  little  Peter  climbed  a  lofty  elm  to  get  a  hanging  bird's 
nest  that  was  built  far  out  on  a  high  projecting  limb.  He 
reached  the  nest  all  right,  but  his  diagnosis  was  not  correct, 
for  it  proved  to  be  a  hornets'  nest,  beyond  dispute. 
To  escape  the  wrath  of  the  hornets,  Peter  descended  the  tree 
"overhand,"  which  being  interpreted  means  that  he  dropped 
and  caught  the  limbs  as  he  went  down  so  as  to  decrease  the 
speed.  The  last  drop  was  about  thirty  feet.  The  fall  did  n't 
hurt,  but  the  sudden  stop  broke  his  collar-bone,  knocked  out 
three  teeth  and  cut  a  scar  on  his  chin  that  lasted  him  all  of 
his  days  Ji-  jt 

Life  is  a  dangerous  business — few  get  out  of  it  alive. 
Life  consists  in  betting  on  your  power  to  do — to  achieve — to 
accomplish — to  climb — to  become.  If  you  mistake  hornets 
for  birds,  you  pay  the  penalty  for  your  error,  as  you  pay  for 
all  mistakes.  The  only  men  who  do  things  are  those  who  dare 
fl  Safety  can  be  secured  by  doing  nothing,  saying  nothing, 
being  nothing.  Here 's  to  those  who  dare ! 
Because  a  thing  had  never  been  done  before  was  to  Peter 
Cooper  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  done  now. 
And  although  he  innocently  stirred  up  a  few  hornets'  nests, 
he  became  a  good  judge  of  both  birds  and  hornets  through 
8 


PETER  COOPER 

personal  experience.  QThat  is  the  advantage  of  making  mis- 
takes. But  wisdom  lies  in  not  responding  to  encores. 
Peter  Cooper's  body  was  marked  by  the  falls,  mauls,  hauls, 
and  scars  of  burns  and  explosions.  Surely  if  God  does  not 
look  us  over  for  medals  and  diplomas,  but  for  scars,  then 
Peter  Cooper  fulfilled  the  requirements. 
When  seventeen  years  old,  he  went  down  to  New  York  and 
apprenticed  himself  to  a  coachmaker.  Woodward  by  name. 
^  He  was  to  get  his  board,  washing  and  mending,  and  twenty- 
five  dollars  a  year.  It  was  a  four  years'  contract — selling 
himself  into  service  and  servitude. 

The  first  two  years  he  saved  twenty  dollars  out  of  his  wages. 
^  The  third  year  his  employer  voluntarily  paid  him  fifty 
dollars;  and  the  fourth  year  seventy-five. 
The  young  man  had  mastered  the  trade. 
Woodward's  shop  was  at  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Cham- 
bers Street,  which  was  then  the  northern  limit  of  the  city. 
Just  beyond  this  was  a  big  garden,  worked  by  a  prosperous 
and  enterprising  Irishman  who  supplied  vegetables  to  ship- 
captains  ^  ^ 

This  garden  later  was  transformed  into  City  Hall  Park,  and 
here  the  city  buildings  were  erected,  the  finest  in  America 
for  their  purpose. 
The  Irish  still  command  the  place. 

New  York  City  then  had  less  than  forty  thousand  inhabitants. 
Peter  Cooper  was  to  see  the  city  grow  to  two  million.  For 
seventy-one  years  after  his  majority  he  was  to  take  an  active 
and   intelligent  interest   in  its  evolution,   tinting    its   best 

9 


PETER  COOPER 

thought  and  hopes  with  his  own  aspiration  J^  The  building 
of  coaches  then  was  a  great  trade.  It  was  stage-coach 
times,  and  a  good  coach  was  worth  anywhere  from  three 
hundred  to  a  thousand  dollars.  The  work  was  done  by  small 
concerns,  where  the  proprietors  and  their  'prentices  would 
turn  out  three  or  four  vehicles  a  year.  To  build  the  finest 
coaches  in  the  world  was  the  ambition  of  Peter  Cooper. 
But  to  get  a  little  needed  capital  he  hired  out  to  a  manu- 
facturer of  woolen  cloth  at  Hempstead,  Long  Island,  for  a 
dollar  and  a  half  a  day.  A  dollar  a  day  was  good  wages  then, 
but  Cooper  had  inventive  skill  in  working  with  machinery  Ji> 
He  had  already  invented  and  patented  a  machine  for  mortis- 
ing the  hubs  of  wagon- wheels. 

Now  he  perfected  a  machine  for  finishing  woolen  cloth.  As 
the  invention  was  made  on  the  time  of,  and  in  the  mill  where 
he  worked,  he  was  only  given  a  one-third  interest  in  it. 
He  went  on  a  visit  to  his  old  home  at  Peekskill,  and  there 
met  Michael  Vassar,  who  was  to  send  the  name  of  Vassar 
down  the  corridors  of  time,  not  as  that  of  a  weaver  of  wool 
and  the  owner  of  a  very  good  brewery,  but  as  the  founder  of  a 
school  for  girls,  or  as  it  is  somewhat  anomalously  called,  **a 
female  seminary." 

Peter  Cooper  sold  the  county-right  of  his  patent  to  Michael 
Vassar  for  five  hundred  dollars.  It  was  more  money  than  the 
father  had  ever  seen  at  one  time  in  all  of  his  life. 
The  War  of  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twelve  was  on,  and 
woolen  cloth  was  in  great  demand,  the  supply  from  England 
having  been  shut  off. 

10 


PETER  COOPER 

Opportunity  and  Peter  Cooper  met,  or  is  the  man  himself 

Opportunity?  j^  J' 

The  ratio  of  marriages,  we  are  told,  keeps  pace  with  the  price 

of  com  ^  .^ 

On  the  strength  of  his  five  hundred  dollars,  Peter  Cooper 

embarked  on  the  sea  of  matrimony,  as  the  village  editors 

express  it. 

When  Peter  Cooper  married  Sarah  Bedell,  it  was  a  fortunate 

thing  for  the  world.  Peter  Cooper  was  a  Commonsense  Man, 

which  is  really  better  than  to  be  a  genius.  A  Commonsense 

Man  is  one  who  does  nothing  to  make  people  think  he  is 

different  from  what  he  is. 

He  is  one  who  would  rather  be  than  seem! 

But  a  Commonsense  Man  needs  a  Commonsense  Woman  to 

help  him  live  a  Commonsense  Life.  Mrs.  Cooper  was  a 

Commonsense  Woman.  She  was  of  Huguenot  parentage. 

^  Persecution  had  given  the  Huguenots  a  sternness  of  mental 

and  moral  fiber,  just  as  it  had  blessed  and  benefited  the 

Puritans  Ji>  J^ 

The  habit  of  independent  thought  got  into  the  veins  of  these 

Huguenots,  and  they  played  important  parts  in  the  War  of 

the  Revolution.  Like  the  Jews,  they  made  good  Free  Thinkers. 

^  They  reason  things  out  without  an  idolatrous  regard  for 

precedent  ^  j/^ 

^  For  fifty-seven  years  Peter  and  Sarah  fought  the  battle  of 

life  together.  He  clarified  his  thought  by  explaining  his  plans 

to  her,  and  together  they  grew  rich — rich  in  money,  rich  in 

experience,  rich  in  love. 

II 


PETER 


COOPER 


HERE  are  men  who  are  not  con- 
tent to  put  all  their  eggs  in  one 
basket,  and  then  watch  the  basket. 
^  Peter  Cooper  craved  the  excite- 
ment of  adventure.  His  nature 
demanded  new  schemes,  new 
plans,  new  methods  upon  which  to 
break  the  impulse  of  his  mind.  The 
trade-wind  of  his  genius  did  not 
blow  constantly  from  one  direction. 
Had  he  been  content  to  focus  on 
coach-building,  he  could  have 
become  rich  beyond  the  dream  of  avarice.  As  it  was,  the  fact 
that  he  could  build  as  good  a  coach  as  any  one  else  satisfied 
that  quarter-section  of  his  nature. 

When  the  war  of  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twelve  closed,  there 
was  a  great  shrinkage  in  wool.  Peter  Cooper  sold  his  holdings 
for  a  grocery-store,  which  he  ran  just  long  enough  to  restock 
and  sell  to  a  man  who  wanted  it  more  than  he  did. 
Then  he  started  a  furniture-factory,  for  he  was  an  expert 
worker  in  wood. 

But  the  bench  for  him  was  only  by-play. 
As  he  worked,  his  mind  roamed  the  world. 
He  used  glue  in  making  the  furniture.  He  bought  his  glue 
from  a  man  who  had  a  little  factory  on  the  site  of  what  is 
now  the  Park  Avenue  Hotel. 

The  man  who  made  the  glue  did  not  like  the  business.  He 
wanted  to  make  furniture,  just  as  comedians  always  want  to 
la 


r 


PETER  COOPER 

play  Hamlet.  flPeter  Cooper's  furniture-shop  was  in  a  rented 
building.  The  glue  man  owned  his  site.  Peter  Cooper  traded  his 
furniture-shop  for  the  glue-factory,  and  got  a  deed  to  the 
premises  Jt>  J> 

He  was  then  thirty-three  years  old.  The  glue-factory  was  the 
foundation  of  his  fortune.  He  made  better  glue  and  more  glue 
than  any  concern  in  America.  Few  men  of  brains  would  get 
stuck  on  the  glue  business.  There  are  features  about  it  not 
exactly  pleasant. 

The  very  difficulties  of  it,  however,  attracted  Cooper.  He 
never  referred  to  his  glue-factory  as  a  chemical  aboratory, 
nor  did  he  call  it  a  studio. 

He  was  proud  of  his  business.  He  made  the  first  isinglass 
manufactured  in  America,  and  for  some  years  monopolized 
the  trade  ^  J^ 

But  one  business  was  not  enough  for  Peter  Cooper.  Attached 
to  the  glue-factory  was  a  machine-shop  which  was  the  scene 
of  many  inventions. 

Here  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twenty-seven  and  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Twenty-eight,  Peter  Cooper  worked  out  and 
made  a  steam-engine,  which  he  felt  sure  was  an  improvement 
on  the  one  that  Watt  had  made  in  England. 
Peter  Cooper's  particular  device  was  a  plan  to  do  away  with 
the  crank,  and  transform  the  rectilinear  motion  of  the  piston 
into  rotary  motion.  He  figured  it  out  that  this  would  save 
two-fifths  of  the  steam,  and  so  stated  in  his  application  for  a 
patent,  a  copy  of  which  is  before  the  writer. 
The  Patent  Office  then  was  looked  after  by  the  President  in 

13 


PETER  COOPER 

person.  Peter  Cooper's  patent  was  signed  by  John  Quincy 
Adams,  President,  Henry  Clay,  Secretary  of  State,  and  Wil- 
liam Wirt,  Attorney  General.  The  patent  was  good  for 
fourteen  years,  so  any  one  who  cares  to  infringe  on  it  can  do 
so  now  without  penalty. 

There  were  then  no  trained  patent-examiners  and  the 
President  and  Secretary  of  State  were  not  inclined  to  hamper 
inventors  with  technicalities.  You  paid  your  fee,  the  patent  was 
granted,  and  all  questions  of  priority  were  left  to  be  fought 
out  in  the  courts.  More  patents  have  been  granted  to  one 
man  —  say  Thomas  A.  Edison  —  than  were  issued  in 
America  all  told,  up  to  the  time  that  Peter  Cooper  went 
down  to  Washington  in  person  and  explained  his  invention  to 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  Henry  Clay,  who  evidently  were 
very  glad  to  sign  the  patent,  rather  than  bother  to  understand 
the  invention. 

In  his  application  Peter  Cooper  states,  "This  invention  is  a 
suitable  motor  for  hauling  land-carriages. " 
It  was  one  year  before  this  that  Stephenson  in  England  had 
given  an  exhibition  in  Manchester,  England,  on  a  circular 
two-mile  track  of  his  locomotive,  the  "Rocket." 
Cooper  had  not  seen  the  "Rocket, "  but  Stephenson's  example 
had  fired  his  brain,  and  he  had  in  his  own  mind  hastened  the 
system  ^^  ^ 

At  this  time  he  was  thirty-six  years  old.  His  glue  business 
was  prosperous.  Several  thousand  dollars  of  his  surplus  he 
had  invested  in  charcoal-kilns  near  Baltimore.  From  this  he 
had  gone  into  a  land  speculation  in  the  suburbs  of  that  city. 
14 


PETER  COOPER 

His  partners  had  abandoned  the  enterprise  and  left  him  to 
face  the  disgrace  of  failure. 

Commerce  was  drifting  away  from  Baltimore  to  Philadelphia 
and  New  York.  The  Erie  Canal  had  been  opened,  and  it 
looked  as  if  this  would  be  the  one  route  to  the  west — the 
Hudson  River  to  Albany,  thence  by  canal  to  Buffalo,  and  on 
by  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  land  of  promise. 
Pennsylvania  had  a  system  of  canals,  partially  in  use,  and 
the  rest  in  building,  which  would  open  up  a  route  to  the  Ohio 
River  at  Pittsburgh.  But  engineers  had  looked  the  ground 
over,  and  gave  it  as  their  opinion  that  Baltimore  was  hedged 
in  by  insurmountable  difficulties.  Prophecies  were  made  that 
soon  ships  would  cease  to  come  to  Baltimore  at  all.  And  under 
this  lowering  commercial  sky,  Peter  Cooper  saw  his  Balti- 
more investments  fading  away  into  the  ether. 
At  this  time  the  Manchester  and  Liverpool  Railroad  was  in 
operation.  The  coaches  and  wagons  were  simply  those  in  use 
on  the  roads,  but  with  new  tires  that  carried  a  flange  to  keep 
the  wheel  on  the  rail.  It  was  found  that  a  team  of  horses 
could  draw  double  the  load  on  a  railroad  that  they  could  if  the 
wheels  of  the  vehicle  were  on  the  ground. 
The  news  was  brought  to  America.  Wooden  rails  were  first 
tried,  and  then  these  were  strengthened  by  nailing  strap  iron 
along  the  top. 

It  was  a  great  idea — build  a  railroad  from  Baltimore  to  the 
Ohio  River,  and  thus  compete  with  the  Pennsylvania  canals 
to  the  Ohio! 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twenty-seven  the  Baltimore  and 

15 


PETER  COOPER 

Ohio  Railroad  Company  was  formed.  It  was  the  first  raibroad 
company  in  America.  Peter  Cooper  bought  shares  to  the 
extent  of  his  ability.  It  was  a  life-and-death  struggle.  If  the 
railroad  was  a  success,  Baltimore  was  saved,  and  Peter 
Cooper  was  a  rich  man,  otherwise  he  was  a  bankrupt. 
Stephenson's  "Rocket"  in  England  was  pulling  three  or  four 
carriages  at  a  speed  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  while  a  team  of 
horses  on  the  same  track  could  only  pull  one  carriage  at  the 
rate  of  six  or  seven  miles  an  hoiir. 

The  City  of  Baltimore  and  the  State  of  Maryland  were 
empowered  to  buy  shares  in  the  new  transportation  company. 
^  Thus  we  find  government  ownership  of  the  first  American 
railroad  ^  ^ 

The  Mayor  of  the  City  and  the  Governor  of  the  State  had 
heard  of  Peter  Cooper's  engine,  which  he  said  could  be  used 
for  *4and-carriages,"  and  they  now  importuned  him  to  come 
to  their  rescue. 

Robert  Fulton  had  already  proved  that  the  steamship  was 
practicable ;  but  Fulton  was  n't  interested  in  railroads.  He 
maintained,  as  did  most  every  one  else,  that  the  water  route 
was  the  only  safe  and  sure  and  economical  way  of  trans- 
portation. And  when  the  railroad  was  built  from  Albany  to 
Schenectady  the  first  idea  was  to  have  the  engine  tow  canal- 
boats  J^  J- 

Peter  Cooper  heard  the  wail  of  the  Baltimoreans,  and  said, 
**I  '11  knock  an  engine  together  in  six  weeks,  that  will  pull 
carriages  ten  miles  an  hour  and  beat  any  canal-boat   that 
ever  collected  barnacles." 
i6 


PETER 


COOPER 


ETER  COOPER  went  back  from 
Baltimore  to  New  York  with  a  few 
.misgivings  as  to  whether  he  had 
^not  promised  too  much. 
The  real  fact  was  he  had  gotten  a 
patent  on  his  engine  before  he  had 
put  it  to  an  actual  test. 
He  had  made  the  engine,  but  now 
he  must  make  a  boiler  in  which 
to  generate  the  steam  to  make  the 
wheels  go  round.  This  boiler  he 
made  and  riveted  with  his  own 
hands.  It  stood  upright  and  was  as  high  as  his  shoulder.  It 
had  a  furnace  beneath.  It  contained  no  tubes,  and  the  propo- 
sition was  to  fill  it  half  full  of  water  and  then  boil  this  water. 
^  It  took  three  weeks  to  make  the  boiler.  It  was  about  as  big  as 
the  tank  in  an  average  kitchen  range.  There  were  no  water- 
gauges  or  steam-gauges.  The  engineer  had  to  guess  as  to  the 
pressure  he  was  carrying. 

When  the  boiler  was  complete,  the  great  difficulty  was  how  to 
carry  the  steam  from  the  boiler  to  the  engine.  There  were  no 
wrought-iron  pipes  then  made  or  sold  in  America.  Cooper 
took  a  couple  of  muskets  and  used  the  barrels  for  pipes  to 
connect  his  boiler  and  engine.  These  were  duly  soldered  into 
place.  The  engine  and  boiler  were  then  placed  on  a  small  flat- 
top wagon  and  bolted  down.  The  engine  had  a  wheel  which 
projected  over  the  side,  and  an  endless  chain  was  run  over 
the  projecting  hub  of  the  wagon. 

17 


PETER  COOPER 

Peter  experimented  and  found  that  the  water  in  the  boiler 
would  last  one  hour ;  then  the  fire  would  have  to  be  drawn, 
and  the  boiler  cooled  and  refilled. 

He  tried  the  engine  and  it  worked,  but  there  was  no  railroad 
upon  which  to  try  the  wagon  until  the  machine  was  taken 
down  to  Baltimore.  A  team  was  hitched  to  the  wagon,  and 
the  drive  was  made  to  Baltimore  in  three  days. 
Peter  placed  his  wagon  with  its  flange-wheels  on  the  track 
and  pushed  it  up  and  down  along  the  rail.  It  fitted  the  track 
all  right.  He  then  went  back  to  his  hotel  with  the  two  boys 
who  were  helping  him.  After  the  boys  were  abed,  he  sneaked 
off  in  the  darkness,  filled  up  his  boiler,  screwed  down  the  top, 
and  fired  up. 

It  was  a  moment  of  intense  excitement. 
He  turned  on  the  steam — the  wheels  revolved — then  the 
thing  stuck.  He  had  a  pike-pole  and  using  this  pushed  him- 
self along  for  a  few  rods.  The  endless  chain  was  working,  and 
the  machine  was  going — flying — almost  as  fast  as  a  man 
could  run.  And  Peter  ran  the  machine  back  in  the  barn,  went 
home  and  went  to  bed.  He  had  succeeded. 
The  next  day  he  invited  the  President  of  the  road  and  the 
Mayor  of  the  City  to  ride  with  him. 

The  machine  had  to  be  poled  or  pushed  to  start  it,  but  it 
proved  the  principle. 

The  following  day  a  public  exhibition  was  given.  Volunteers 
were  asked  for,  who  wished  to  ride.  Forty  men  and  one 
woman  responded.  These  rode  on  the  engine  and  in  a  big 
coach  attached  behind.  They  covered  the  top  of  the  coach  and 
i8 


PETER  COOPER 

clung  to  the  sides.  A  dozen  men  got  hold  and  gave  a  good 
push  and  they  were  off ! 

The  road  was  just  thirteen  miles  long.  The  distance  was  made 
in  one  hour  and  twelve  minutes. 

The  fire  was  then  drawn  and  the  boiler  refilled.  Also,  all  of  the 
passengers  refilled,  for  whisky  flowed  free. 
Peter  Cooper  was  ready  to  start  back.  He  ordered  every  man 
to  hold  on  to  his  hat.  A  push  and  a  pull,  all  together,  and  they 
were  off. 

They  ran  the  thirteen  miles  back  in  just  fifty-eight  minutes. 
^  The  engine  was  a  success  beyond  the  fondest  hopes  of 
Peter  ^  ^ 

There  were  diflSiculties  in  the  way,  however.  One  was  that  the 
pulling  only  on  one  side  caused  a  cramping  of  the  flange  on 
the  other  side  against  the  rail.  This  was  remedied  by  putting 
a  wheel  on  both  sides  and  running  a  chain  on  the  two  pro- 
jecting hubs. 

The  pulling  by  hand  to  start  was  also  criticized. 
Next  the  fact  that  the  engine  had  to  be  shut  down  every  hour 
for  water  was  noted.  Peter  Cooper  stopped  the  mouths  of  the 
carpers  by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  even  a  horse  had 
to  be  watered.  And  as  for  giving  a  push  on  starting,  it  was  a 
passenger's  duty  to  collaborate  with  the  engineer. 
Beside  that,  passengers  get  thirsty  and  hungry  as  well  as 
horses,  and  want  a  little  change.  Peter  Cooper  assured  the 
critics  that  the  boiler  could  be  refilled  while  a  man  was  getting 
a  drink  and  stretching  his  legs. 

The  people  who  owned  the  stage-coach  line  that  ran  parallel 

19 


PETER  COOPER 

with  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  made  a  lot  of  fun  of 
Peter  Cooper's  teakettle. 

On  one  occasion  they  loosened  a  rail,  so  the  thing  ran  into  the 
ditch.  For  a  time  this  sort  of  discouraged  traffic,  but  there 
were  others  who  prophesied  that  in  a  few  years  horses  could 
not  be  given  away. 

Finally,  the  owner  of  the  stage-coach  line  challenged  the 
railroad  folks  to  race  from  Riley's  Tavern  to  Baltimore,  a 
distance  of  nine  miles.  The  race  was  between  a  noted  gray 
horse,  famed  for  speed  and  endurance,  and  the  teakettle.  The 
road  ran  right  alongside  of  the  wagon  route.  In  truth,  it  took 
up  a  part  of  the  roadway,  which  was  one  cause  of  opposition. 
The  race  occurred  on  September  Eighteenth,  Eighteen  Hun- 
dred and  Thirty.  Thousands  of  dollars  were  bet,  and  a  throng 
of  people  lined  the  route  from  start  to  finish.  The  engine 
pulled  but  one  coach,  and  had  one  passenger.  The  gray  horse 
was  hitched  to  a  buggy  that  carried  one  man  besides  the 
driver  J>  ^ 

The  engine  led  for  five  miles,  when  the  boiler  sprung  a  leak 
and  stopped,  the  engineer  in  his  anxiety  getting  on  too  much 
pressure. 

The  horse  won,  and  this  proved  to  many  people  a  fact  which 
they  had  suspected  and  foretold,  that  the  steam-engine  for 
land-carriages  was  only  a  plaything. 

Farmers  in  that  vicinity  took  heart  and  began  again  to 
raise  horses. 


20 


PETER 


COOPER 


N  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Thirty- 
one,  when  Peter  Cooper  was  forty 
years  old,  he  was  worth  fifty 
thousand  dollars;  when  he  was 
forty-five  he  was  worth  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars;  when  he  was 
fifty,  he  was  worth  over  two  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars.  He  was  one 
of  the  richest  men  of  New  York, 
and  he  was  a  man  of  influence. 
^  Had  he  centered  on  money- 
making,  he  might  have  become  the 
richest  man  in  America. 

He  held  political  office  that  he  might  serve  the  people,  not 
that  he  might  serve  a  party  or  himself. 
In  all  deliberative  bodies,  the  actual  work  is  done  by  a  few.  A 
dozen  men  or  less  run  Congress. 

For  forty  years  Peter  Cooper  served  the  City  of  New  York,  and 
the  State,  and  always  to  his  own  financial  loss. 
He  saw  the  last  remains  of  the  Indian  Stockade  removed 
from  Manhattan  Island.  When  he  was  elected  alderman,  the 
city  was  patrolled  by  night-watchmen,  who  made  their 
rounds  and  cried  the  hour  and  "All  *s  Well!'*  For  five  hours, 
from  midnight  until  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  they  walked 
and  watched.  They  were  paid  a  dollar  a  night,  and  the  money 
was  collected  from  the  people  who  owned  property  on  the 
streets  that  they  patrolled,  just  as  in  country  towns  they 
sprinkle  the  streets  in  front  of  the  residences  owned  by  the 

21 


PETER  COOPER 

men  who  subscribe.  flPeter  Cooper  inaugurated  a  system  of 
"public  safety,"  or  police  protection.  He  also  replaced  the 
old  volunteer  fire  department  with  a  paid  service  ^  He 
was  the  first  man  to  protest  against  the  use  of  wells  as  a 
water-supply  for  a  growing  city. 

The  first  water-pipes  used  in  New  York  City  were  bored  logs ; 
he  fought  against  these,  and  finally  induced  the  city  to  use 
iron  pipes.  As  there  was  no  iron  pipe  at  this  time  made  in 
America,  he  inaugurated  a  company  to  cast  pipe.  Very 
naturally  his  motives  in  demanding  iron  pipes  were  assailed, 
but  he  stood  his  ground  and  made  the  pipes  and  sold  them  to 
the  city  rather  than  that  the  city  should  not  have  them. 
He  was  brave  enough  to  place  himself  in  a  suspicious  position, 
that  the  people  might  prosper. 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Thirty,  he  organized  **The  Free 
School  Society,"  to  fight  the  division  of  the  school  funds 
among  sectarian  schools.  The  idea  that  any  form  of  religion 
should  be  taught  at  public  expense  was  abhorrent  to  him. 
He  was  denounced  as  an  infidel  and  an  enemy  of  society,  but 
his  purity  of  life  and  unselfish  devotion  to  what  he  knew  was 
right  were  his  shield  and  defense.  The  fight  was  kept  up  from 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Thirty  to  Eighteen  Hundred  and 
Fifty-three,  when  it  was  fixed  in  the  statute  that  **no  fund 
raised  by  taxation  should  be  provided  or  used  for  the  support 
of  any  school  in  which  any  religious  or  sectarian  doctrine  or 
tenet  is  taught,  inculcated  or  practised. " 
The  Free  School  Society  was  then  fused  with  the  School 
Board,  and  ceased  to  exist  as  a  separate  institution.  That  the 

22 


PETER  COOPER 

amalgamation  was  a  plan  to  shelve  Peter  Cooper's  secular 
ideas  dawned  upon  him  later.  And  that  the  struggle  for  a 
school  free  from  superstition's  taint  was  not  completely  won, 
Peter  Cooper  fully  realized. 

But  perhaps  it  is  well  that  his  fine  optimism  could  not  foresee 
the  flavor  of  religious  bigotry  and  superstition  which  would 
exist  in  our  whole  school  system  for  many  years. 
And  the  end  is  not  yet. 

During  his  long  service  on  the  School  Board  of  New  York 
City,  Peter  Cooper  worked  out  in  his  own  mind  an  ideal  of 
education,  which  he  was  unable  to  impress  upon  his  fellow 
townsmen.  No  doubt  their  indifference  and  opposition  tended 
to  crystallize  his  own  ideas.  Blessed  be  difficulty ! 
The  many  lag  behind — the  few  go  on.  And  if  a  man's  actions 
and  thoughts  outstrip  the  rabble,  he  surely  should  not  com- 
plain because  the  rabble  does  not  sympathize  with  him. 
His  virtue  lies  in  the  very  fact  that  he  can  do  without  popular 
support  and  push  on  alone. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  Peter  Cooper  was  exactly  disgusted 
with  the  public-school  system  of  New  York,  for  he,  more  than 
any  other  one  man,  had  evolved  it  and  carried  it  forward 
from  very  meager  beginnings.  Democracy  has  great  dis- 
advantages. Democracy  is  a  safeguard  against  tyranny,  but 
it  often  cramps  and  hinders  the  man  of  genuine  initiative.  If 
the  entire  public-school  system  of  the  state  had  been  delegated 
to  Peter  Cooper  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty,  he  as  sole 
commissioner  could  and  would  have  set  the  world  a  pace  in 
pedagogy  ^  J> 

23 


E      T 


0 


E 


The  contention  of  Disraeli  that  democracy  means  the  rule  of 
the  worst  has  in  it  a  basis  of  truth.  Peter  Cooper's  appeals  to 
his  colleagues  on  the  school  board  fell  on  idle  ears.  And  so  he 
decided  to  do  the  thing  himself,  and  the  extent  to  which  he 
would  do  it  was  to  be  limited  only  by  his  fortune. 
Cooper  Union  was  to  be  a  model  for  every  public  school  in 
America  J'  J^ 


HE  block  bounded  by  Third  and 
Fourth  Avenue  and  the  Bowery 
was  bought  up  by  Peter  Cooper,  a 
lot  at  a  time,  with  the  idea  of  a 
model  school  in  mind.  When  Peter 
Cooper  bought  the  first  lot  there  in 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Thirty-six, 
the  site  was  at  the  extreme  north 
limit  of  the  city.  Later,  A.  T. 
Stewart  was  to  build  his  Business 
Palace  near  at  hand. 
Cooper  offered  his  block  of  land  to 

the  city,  gratis,  provided  a  school  would  be  built  according 

to  his  plans. 

His  offers  were  smilingly  pigeonholed. 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty-four,  when  Peter  Cooper  was 
24 


PETER  COOPER 

sixty-one  years  old,  he  began  the  building  of  his  model  school 
on  his  own  account. 

His  business  affairs  had  prospered,  and  besides  the  glue- 
factory  he  was  making  railroad-iron  at  Ringwood,  New 
Jersey,  and  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania. 
These  mills  were  very  crude  according  to  our  present-day 
standards.  But  Peter  Cooper  believed  the  consumption  of  iron 
would  increase.  Bridges  were  then  built  almost  entirely  of 
wood.  Peter  Cooper  built  bridges,  riveted  together,  of  rolled 
iron  "boards,"  as  they  were  first  called.  But  he  found  it 
difficult  to  compete  with  the  wooden  structures. 
When  he  began  building  Cooper  Union,  he  found  himself 
with  a  big  stock  of  bridge-iron  on  hand  for  which  there  was 
no  market.  The  excavations  were  already  made  for  the 
foundations,  when  the  idea  came  to  Peter  Cooper  that  he 
could  utilize  this  bridge-iron  in  his  school-building  and  thus 
get  an  absolutely  fire-proof  structure. 

The  ability  of  Peter  Cooper  to  adapt  himself  to  new  con- 
ditions, turning  failure  into  success,  is  here  well  illustrated. 
^  Not  until  he  had  accumulated  an  overstock  of  bridge-iron 
did  he  think  of  using  iron  for  the  frames  of  buildings.  It  was 
the  first  structural  use  of  iron  to  re-enforce  stone  and  brick,  in 
America  jt  ^ 

Cooper  Union  was  nearly  five  years  in  building.  A  financial 
panic  had  set  in,  and  business  was  at  a  standstill.  But  Peter 
did  not  cheapen  his  plan,  and  the  idea  of  abandoning  it  never 
occurred  to  him. 

The  land  and  building  cost    him  six  hundred  and  thirty 

25 


PETER  COOPER 

thousand  dollars  and  came  near  throwing  him  into  bank- 
ruptcy. But  business  revived  and  he  pulled  through,  to  the 
loss  of  reputation  of  many  good  men  who  had  persistently 
prophesied  failure. 

Be  it  said  to  the  credit  of  his  family  that  the  household,  too, 
partook  of  the  dream  and  lent  their  aid. 
Altogether,  the  assets  of  Cooper  Union  are  now  above  two 
million  dollars. 

The  ideal  man  in  the  mind  of  Peter  Cooper  was  Benjamin 
Franklin.  He  wanted  to  help  the  apprentice — the  poor  boy.  He 
saw  many  young  men  dissipating  their  energies  at  saloons 
and  other  unprofitable  places.  If  he  could  provide  a  place 
where  these  young  men  could  find  entertainment  and  op- 
portunity to  improve  their  minds,  it  would  be  a  great  gain. 
Peter  Cooper  thought  that  we  are  educated  through  the  sense 
of  curiosity  quite  as  much  as  in  reading  books.  So  Cooper 
Union  provided  a  museum  of  waxworks  and  many  strange, 
natural-history  specimens.  There  was  also  an  art-gallery,  a 
collection  of  maps,  statuary ;  and  a  lecture-hall  was  placed 
in  the  basement  of  the  building.  Peter  Cooper  had  once  seen 
a  panic  occur  in  a  hall  located  on  a  second  story  and  the 
people  fell  over  each  other  in  a  mass  on  the  stairway.  He 
said  a  panic  was  not  likely  to  occur  going  upstairs.  This  hall 
is  a  beautiful  and  effective  assembly-room,  even  yet.  It  seats 
nineteen  hundred  people,  and  the  audience  so  surrounds  the 
speaker  that  it  does  not  impress  one  as  being  the  vast 
auditorium  which  it  is. 

Cooper  Union  has  always  been  the  home  of  free  speech. 
26 


PETER  COOPER 

Next  to  Faneuil  Hall  it  is  the  most  distinguished  auditorium 
in  America,  from  a  historic  standpoint. 
William  Cullen  Bryant,  Edward  Everett,  Henry  Ward  Beecher , 
Wendell  Phillips,  and  every  great  speaker  of  the  time  spoke 
here.  Victoria  WoodhuU  brought  much  scandal  on  the  devoted 
head  of  Peter  Cooper  when  he  allowed  her  to  use  the  plat- 
form to  ventilate  her  peculiar  views.  Peter  Cooper  met  the 
criticism  by  inviting  her  to  come  back  and  speak  again. 
She  did  so,  being  introduced  by  Theodore  Tilton. 
Here  came  Lincoln,  the  gaunt  and  homely,  and  spoke  before 
he  was  elected  President.  His  "Cooper  Union  Speech"  is  a 
memorable  document,  although  it  was  given  without  notes 
and  afterwards  written  out  by  Lincoln,  who  seemed  surprised 
that  any  one  should  care  to  read  it. 

The  speech  given  in  Cooper  Union  by  Robert  G.  IngersoU 
lifted  him  from  the  rank  of  a  western  lawyer  to  national 
prominence  in  a  single  day.  Other  men  had  criticized  the 
Christian  religion,  but  no  man  of  power  on  a  public  platform 
had  up  to  that  time  in  America  expressed  his  abhorrence  and 
contempt  for  it. 

The  reputation  of  IngersoU  had  preceded  him.  He  had  given 
his  lecture  in  Peoria,  then  in  Chicago,  and  now  he  made  bold 
to  ask  Peter  Cooper  for  permission  to  use  the  historic  hall. 
Cooper  responded  with  eagerness.  There  was  talk  of  a 
mob  when  the  papers  announced  an  "infidel  speech." 
The  auspicious  night  came,  and  Peter  Cooper  introduced  the 
speaker  himself.  He  sat  on  the  platform  during  the  address, 
at  times  applauding  vigorously.  It  was  an  epoch,  but  then 

27 


PETER  COOPER 

Peter  Cooper  was  an  epoch-making  man.  flCooper  Union  is 
now  conducted  along  the  identical  lines  laid  out  by  its  founder. 
qit  is  a  Free  University,  dedicated  to  the  People.  It  has  a 
yearly  enrolment  of  over  thirty-five  hundred  pupils.  Only 
three  Universities  in  America  surpass  it  in  numbers.  Its 
courses  are  designed  to  cover  the  needs  of  practical,  busy 
people.  Art,  architecture,  engineering,  business  and  chemis- 
try are  its  principal  features.  Its  fine  reading-room  and 
library  have  a  yearly  attendance  of  a  million  visitors.  The 
great  hall  is  used  almost  every  night  in  the  year. 
And  just  remember  that  this  has  continued  for  fifty  years  jft 
When  the  building  was  built,  there  were  no  passenger- 
elevators  in  New  York,  or  elsewhere.  Peter  Cooper's  mechan- 
ical mind  saw  that  higher  buildings  would  demand  mechanical 
lifts,  and  so  he  provided  a  special  elevator-shaft.  He  saw  his 
prophecy  come  true,  and  there  is  now  an  elevator  in  the  place 
he  provided. 

The  demand  now  upon  the  building  overtaxes  its  capacity. 
^  The  influx  of  foreign  population  in  New  York  City  makes 
the  needs  of  Cooper  Union  even  more  imperative  than  they 
were  fifty  years  ago.  So  additional  buildings  are  now  under 
way,  and  with  increased  funds  from  various  worthy  and  noble 
people.  Cooper  Union  is  taking  a  new  lease  of  life  and  use- 
fulness ^  jt 

And  into  all  the  work  there  goes  the  unselfish  devotion  and 
the  untiring  spirit  of  Peter  Cooper,  apprentice,  mechanic, 
inventor,  business  man,    financier,  philosopher    and   friend 
of  humanity. 
28 


THE  FRA  Magazine 

for  August  will  contain  an  Appreciation  of 
Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  by  Alice  Hubbard,  with 
Cover  Portrait  by  Gaspard,  on  Alexandra  Japan 
Vellum  ^^  Also  several  Special  Articles  on  the 
Suffrage  Subject  by  Writers  of  International 
Following.  Folks  who  understand  why  women 
should  have  the  ballot,  and  folks  who  do  not, 
will  alike  derive  much  instruction  and  interest 
from  this  Number  of  THE  FRA.QIn  conjunc- 
tion with  this  Number,  The  Student,  The 
Thinker,  The  Agitator  should  read  Alice  Hub- 
bard's Book— WOMAN'S  WORK.  This  Book 
clearly  explains  "what  line  of  action  women 
should  follow  in  order  to  gain  the  largest  meas- 
ure of  good  for  themselves  and  the  world.  A 
w^oman  who  has  emancipated  herself  speaks. 

Woman's  Work 

is  printed  in  two  colors  on  Boxmoor,  with 
Special  Initials  by  Dard  Hunter,  and  bound  in 
boards.  Of  an  edition  of  forty  thousand,  thirty- 
eight  thousand  have  already  been  sold  for  tw^o 
dollars  per  copy.  G[  A  SPECIAL  OFFER  of 
THE  FRA  Magazine  for  one  year  with  a  Two 
Dollar  binding  of  ^Voman's  W^ork — gratis — is 
made  to  those  Good  and  Intellectual  Souls  who 
would  help  the  Cause  of  Women.  Two  Dollars. 

The  Roycrofters,  East  Aurora,  New  York 


ROYCROFT  BOOKS 

CONTEMPLATIONS 

BY         ELBERT         HUBBARD 

Q  Doubtless  the  most  bea'utiful  book  ever  issued  by  The  Roy- 
crofters.  Printed  in  a  Special  Style  on  Japan  Vellum  in  two 
colors.  Title-page  after  the  Decretales  of  Saint  Gregory,  as 
done  byjoanis  Petit,  at  Venice,  in  Fifteen  Hundred  and  Twenty- 
nine  ^  Illustrated  with  actual  photographic  print  ( not  a  re- 
production) by  the  Author  ^  Bound  in  full  Modeled  Leather 
with  Silk  doublure  and  marbled  fly-leaves.  Boxed  in  a  velvet- 
lined,  hand-carved,  mahogany  case  with  hand-hammered, 
copper  clasp  and  hinges.  Price $200.00 

VIRGINIBUS     PUERISQUE 

BY      ROBERT      LOUIS       STEVENSON 

QWe  have  only  One  Copy  of  this  lovely  little  Essay  ^  It  is 
Number  Fifty-three,  the  last  unsold  of  a  limited  edition  of  one 
hundred,  numbered  and  signed  by  Elbert  Hubbard  ^  Printed 
from  the  face  of  Elzevir  Type  (Stevenson's  favorite  font)  on 
Japan  Vellum  Ji  Specially  bound  in  full  Levant  with  a 
unique  design  in  Gold  and  Ivory  hand-tooled  into  the  grain. 
Price $50.00 

FAMOUS      W^OMEN 

A      BOOK       BY      ELBERT      HUBBARD 

Q  Bound  in  marble  and  three-quarters  Levant  ^  Title  and 
original  design  on  back  in  Gold.  Printed  on  Roycroft  Hand- 
made Paper,  hand-illumined  with  Special  Initials.  Paragraph- 
marks  and  ornaments  inserted  by  hand  in  color,  after  the 
Sixteenth  Century  Style.  Numbered  and  signed,  blessed  and 
boxed  by  the  Pastor.  Price $25,00 


ROYCROFT  BOOKS— Cont, 


FRIENDSHIP 

BY       HENRY       DAVID       THOREAU 

Q  Printed  on  Real  Vellum  from  a  new  font  of  Cheltenham 
Type  ^  Forty  beautiful  free-hand  illuminations,  ornamental 
initials.  Bound  in  full  Levant.  Hand-tooled  in  Gold,  on  front 
and  back  and  inside  covers.  Hand-made  Morocco  Case.  Tall 
Copy,  the  only  one  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  Price   .     .     $250.00 

ESSAYS  OF  ELIA,  by  charles  lamb 

Q  No  Library  can  be  complete  without  this  book.  Perhaps  your 
Copy  is  not  so  good  as  it  might  be.  We  have  one  or  two  printed 
throughout  in  two  colors  on  Whatman,  with  extra  illuminations 
done  by  hand.  Bound  in  full  Levant,  title  and  cover-design  in 
Gold  ^  Snugly  boxed  in  a  handsome  case  lined  with  Korean 
Velvet.  Price $100.00 


THE    TRAGEDY    OF    HAMLET 

by  William  Shakespeare,  or  was  it  Francis  Bacon  ?  This  book 
is  bound  in  Alicia  and  suljstantial  boards  with  title  stamped  in 
Gold.  Printed  from  a  sharp  new  font  of  Bruce  Roman,  a  very 
suitable  type,  on  Italian  Hand-made  Paper,Title-page  illumined. 
A  very  great  Hamlet  indeed.  Price $7.50 


The  Essay  on  SELF-RELIANCE 

BY      RALPH      WALDO      EMERSON 

QOn  Roycroft  Hand-made  Paper  in  large,  readable  Type. 
Frontispiece,  a  dry-point  etching  of  the  Author  by  Otto 
Schneider.  Scolii  and  Colophon  in  color.  Bound  in  Boards  and 
Buckram.  Title  in  Gold.  Price       $2.00 


prior  to  printing 


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^^  little  difference 
between  Letters  & 
Hrt.  C  Nearly  all 
6ood  Cdork  in 
eitber  brancb  was 
done  by  Cloistered 
jVIonks  in  quiet 
courts  wbere  Cime 
was  indeed  an  Il- 
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tbe  band-work  of 
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an  almost  super- 
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sucb  is  tbe  result 
of  Infinite  Care, 
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believe  tbere  are 
still  many  people, 
perfectly  sane,  wbo 
resent  JVIacbine- 
made  Hrt,  wbo  con- 
sider, tbe  Classic 


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Cf  or  tbese,  fra 
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tbe  J^onastic  Im- 
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patience,  does  occa- 
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on  7apan  Vellum. 
<LIf  you  do  not 
burry  bim  be  will 
design  by  band,  as 
did  tbe  jVIonks  of 
eid.  Resolutions, 
JMottoes,  Book- 
plates, f^avorite 
poems.  Diplomas, 
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and  sucb  like,  con- 
scientiously con- 
forming to  any 
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tbat  is  desired. 
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ANDREW     CARNEGIE 


iWus^ical  Contention 

August  Twenty-third  to  September  First 


jARLY  last  September,  Professor  S.  L.  Barrow- 
Clough,  Master  Musician  of  Winnipeg,  and  his 
sixty-one  bonnie,  blue-eyed  Band  Boys  paid  us 
a  visit  here  in  East  Aurora.  QOut  on  the  Peri- 
style, underneath  an  Orange  Moon,  surrounded 
by  giant  trees,  these  men  played  to  the  greatest  audiences 
ever  assembled  in  East  Aurora.  QOver  three  thousand 
people,  Royal,  Loyal  Roycrofters,  gathered  to  greet  the 
Winnipeg  Band  «^  They  perched  on  the  Peristyle,  they 
carried  benches  down  around  the  Fountain  in  the  Court, 
they  overflowed  the  lawns,  clustered  about  the  Well  Sweep 
and  swarmed  the  Stone  Walls  and  Tree  Seats  in  the 
Orchard  like  Locusts  «5^  Such  Music !  C^And  now,  Barrow- 
Clough  and  his  Premier  Performers  are  coming  back.  They 
have  accepted  our  Invitation ;  they  will  bring  their  Instru- 
ments and  spend  a  week.  Q  Other  Musicians,  Soloists, 
Vocalists  and  Troupes  are  coming  too,  and  for  a  time  the 
Home  of  The  Roycrofters  will  be  transformed  into  a  Garden 
of  Harmony.  HSo  now  then  we  announce  a  Congress  of 
Musicians,  August  Twenty-third  to  September  First  ^ 
There  is  a  place  at  the  Roycroft  Festal  Board  for  every 
lover  of  Sweet  Sounds.  Only,  if  you  are  coming  you  had 
better  let  us  know  a  bit  beforehand  «^  jt  .^   ^  ^  ^ 


Wbt  JRopcrof  terg,  €a«t  aiurora,  J5eto  |?otfe 


I 


Inspirational  Little  Journeys 

LIMP^  LEATHER  EDITION 
^  Progressive  Educators  consider  a  complete 
set  of  Little  Journeys  in  many  ways  superior 
to  a  four  years'  Course  in  College  English. 
Others  value  their  condensed  Historical 
teachings;  while  the  yield  to  the  literary 
aspirant  is  style  in  diction  and  virility.  ^  Free 
from  the  Cumbersome  and  Conventional — 
Little  Journeys  pulse  with  interest.  Subjects : 

Vol.     6.  Morris,  Browning,  Tennyson,   Bums,   Milton, 

Johnson. 
Vol.     7.  Macaulay,  Byron,  Addison,  Southey,  Coleridge, 

Disraeli. 
Vol.     8.  Wagner,  Paganini,   Chopin,   Mozart,  Bach, 

Mendelssohn. 
Vol.     9.  Liszt,    Beethoven,  Handel,  Verdi,  Schumann, 

Brahms. 
Vol.  10.  Raphael,    Leonardo,    Botticelli,    Thorwaldsen, 

Gainsborough,  Velasquez. 
Vol.  11.  Corot,   Correggio,   Bellini,  Cellini,  Abbey, 

Whistler. 
Vol.  12.  Pericles,  Anthony,  Savonarola,  Luther,  Burke, 

Pitt. 
Vol.  13.  Marat,  Ingersoll,   Patrick    Henry,    Starr  King, 

Beecher,  Phillips, 
Vol.  14.  Socrates,  Aristotle,  Spinoza,  Seneca,  Aurelius, 

Swedenborg. 
Vol.  15.  Kant,  Comte,  Voltaire,  Spencer,  Schopenhauer, 

Thoreau. 


INSPIRATIONAL   LITTLE   JOURNEYS— Contiimcd 

Vol.  16.  Copernicus,  Newton,  Herschel,  Galileo> 
Humboldt,  Darwin. 

Vol.  17.  Haeckel,  Linnaeus,  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Wallace, 
Fiske. 

Vol.  18.  Josiah  and  Sarah  Wedgwood,  William  Godwin 
and  Mary  Wollstonecraft,  Dante  and  Beatrice, 
John  Stuart  Mill  and  Harriet  Taylor,  Pamell 
and  Kitty  O'Shea,  Petrarch  and  Laura. 

Vol.  19.  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  and  Elizabeth  Siddal, 
Balzac  and  Madame  Hanska,  Fenelon  and 
Madame  Guyon,  Ferdinand  Lassalle  and  Helen 
von  Donniges,  Lord  Nelson  and  Lady  Hamilton, 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  Fannie  Osbourne. 

Vol.  20.  John  Wesley,  Henry  George,  Garibaldi,  Richard 
Cobden,  Thomas  Paine,  John  Knox. 

Vol.  21.  John  Bright,  Bradlaugh,  Theodore  Parker, 
Oliver  Cromwell,  Anne  Hutchinson,  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau. 

Vol.  22.  Moses,  Confucius,  Pythagoras,  Plato,  King 
Alfred,  Friedrich  Froebel. 

Vol.  23.  Booker  T.  Washington,  Thomas  Arnold, 
Erasmus,  H3rpatia,  St.  Benedict,  Mary  Baker 
Eddy. 

The  above-named  Little  Journeys  have  been 
reprinted  on  Italian  Hand-made  paper,  and 
Bound  artfully  in  Limp  leather,  silk-lined,  gilt 
top,  with  silk  marker.  Six  Little  Journeys  in 
each  Volume — some  few  are  illumined  by 
hand.  THREE    DOLLARS   the  volume. 

THE  ROYCROFTERS 
East  Aurora,         Erie  County,         New  York 


Poets,  like  painters  thus  unskilled  to  trace 

The  naked  nature  and  the  living  grace. 

With  gold  and  jewels  cover  every  part, 

And  hide  w^ith  ornaments  their  want  of  art.— Pope 

Roycroft  Furniture 


w 


THE    ANTITHESIS    OF    CHIPPENDALE 

'HE  men  who  make 
Roycroft  Furniture 
do  not  cover  their  skill 
with  ornamentation.They 
do  not  permit  Rococo 
finishes  or  Rocaille  de- 
signs to  clutter  the  sur- 
face of  their  work.  Beds, 
Bookcases  and  Tables 
made  by  East  Aurora 
Craftsmen  never  border 
on  the  Baroque,  nor  do 
the  chairs  and  benches 
creak  beneath  the  Seats 
of  the  Mighty.  Q  Sturdy 
and  Strong  as  the  Artists 
who  liberate  them  from 
the  log,  products  of  our 
Wood  Shop  please  those 
people  who  see  beauty  in 
utility  and  service.  Roy- 
croft Furniture  presages  a  day  when  Commonsense  shall 
hold  sway  in  house  decoration — when  only  the  thmgs  are 
considered  Best,  whose  Makers  dedicated  their  work  to 
Time.  Catalogue  on  Application  jt  ji        ,^   j»  jt  ^  ^  ^ 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East   Aurora,   N.  Y. 


JDVurty':^ 


[TO  THF  HOMg^T^ 


irn=^?Tflm 


Andrew  Carnegie 


HJnEHHTDTH 


ROOK-RY-THFI 


Sg  IE  QE52ZSIKH  ag  §g 


sgsg^^^^fflEH 


I  CONGRATULATE  poor  young  men  upon  being  born  to    that 
ancient  and  honorable  degree  which  renders  it  necessary  that  they 
should  devote  themselves  to  hard  work. — ANDREW  CARNEGIE. 


TYr 


ANDREW    CARNEGIE 


LITTLE  JOURNEYS 


HE  fact  that  Andrew  Carnegie  is  a 
Scotsman,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
never  been  refuted  nor  denied. 
Scotland  is  a  wonderful  country 
in  which  to  slip  the  human 
product.  Then  when  this  product 
is  transplanted  to  a  more  sunshiny 
soil  we  sometimes  get  a  world- 
beater  ^  J' 

Scotland  is  a  good  country  to  be 
born  in;  and  it  is  a  good  country 
to  get  out  of;  and  at  times  it  may 
be  a  good  country  to  go  back  to. 

I  once  attended  a  dinner  given  to  James  Barrie  in  London. 
Q  One  of  the  speakers  sprung  the  usual  joke  about  how  when 
the  Scotch  leave  Scotland  they  never  go  back.  When  Barrie 
arose  to  reply  he  said :  "  Perhaps  it  is  true  that  the  Scotch, 
when  they  leave  their  native  land,  seldom  return.  If  so,  there 
is  surely  precedent.  In  truth.  Englishmen  have  been  known 
to  go  to  Scotland,  and  never  return.  Once  there  was  quite  a 
company  of  Englishmen  went  to  Scotland  and  they  never 
returned.  The  place  where  they  went  was  Bannockbum." 
q  In  literature  Scotland  has  exceeded  her  quota.  From  Adam 
Smith,  with  his  deathless  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  and  Tammas, 
the  Techy  Titan,  with  his  "French  Revolution, "  to  Bobbie 
Bums  and  Robert  Louis  the  Well-beloved,  we  have  a  people 
who  have  been  saying  things  and  doing  things,  since  John 
Knox  made  pastoral  calls  on  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  and  saw 
the  devil's  tail  behind  her  chair. 

Dr.  Johnson  pretended  to  hate  the  Scotch,  but  he  lives  for  us 
only  because  he  was  well  Boswellized  by  a  Scotchman.  And 
now  nobody  knows  just  how  much  of  Boswell  is  Dr.  Johnson 

29 


ANDREW  and  how  much  is  Boswell.  ^What  Connecticut  has  done 
CARNEGIE  for  New  England,  Scotland  did  for  Great  Britain. 

The  Scotch  gave  us  the  iron  ship,  the  lamp-chimney,  the 
telephone  j^  jfc 

Also,  they  supplied  us  Presbyterianism.  And  this  being  true, 
they  also  supplied  the  antidote  in  David  Hume. 
We  have  been  told  that  it  is  necessary  to  agree  with  a  Scots- 
man or  else  kill  him.  But  this  is  a  left-handed  libel,  like  unto 
the  statement  that  the  reason  the  Scotch  cling  to  breeks  is 
because  the  breeks  have  no  pockets,  and  when  the  drinks  are 
mentioned  Sandy  fumbles  for  siller,  but  is  never  able  to  find 
the  price,  and  so  lets  some  one  else  foot  the  bill. 
Another  bit  of  classic  persiflage  is  to  the  effect  that  there  are 
no  Jews  in  Scotland,  because  they  could  no  more  exist  there 
than  they  could  in  New  Hampshire,  and  this  for  a  like  reason 
— they  find  competition  too  severe. 

The  canny  Scot  with  his  beautiful  ** nearness"  lives  in  legend 
and  story  in  a  thousand  forms.  The  pain  a  Scotsman  suffers 
on  having  to  part  with  a  shilling  is  pictured  by  Ian  McLaren 
and  Sir  Walter.  Then  came  Christopher  North  and  Dr.  John 
Brown  with  deathless  Scotch  stories  of  sacrifice  and  unsel- 
fishness that  shame  the  world,  and  secure  the  tribute  of  our 
tears  J^  ^ 

To  speak  of  the  Scotch  as  having  certain  exclusive  character- 
istics is  to  be  a  mental  mollycoddle. 

As  a  people  they  have  all  the  characteristics  that  make  strong 
men  and  women,  and  they  have  them,  plus.  The  Scotch  supply 
us  the  eternal  paradox.  Against  the  tales  of  money  meanness 
and  miserly  instincts,  we  have  Andrew  Carnegie,  who  has 
given  away  more  money  in  noble  causes  than  any  other  man 
who  has  ever  lived  since  history  began. 
The  Scotch  stand  in  popular  estimate  for  religious  bigotry, 
yet  the  offense  of  Andrew  Carnegie  to  a  vast  number  of 
people  is  his  liberal  attitude  of  mind  in  all  matters  pertaining 
30 


to  religion.  ^  Then  the  Scotch  are  supposed  to  be  a  pugna-  ANDREW 
cious,  quarrelsome  and  fighting  people,  but  here  is  a  man  CARNEGIE 
who  has  made  his  name  known  as  the  symbol  of  disarma- 
ment and  international  peace. 

In  the  list  of  twelve  great  business  men  that  comprise  the 
present  series  of  Little  Journeys,  we  have,  by  a  curious  coin- 
cidence, three  Scotsmen ;  James  Oliver,  Philip  D.  Armour  and 
Andrew  Carnegie. 

These  three  men  were  each  the  very  antithesis  of  dogmatists 
and  sectarians.  They  respected  all  religions,  but  had  implicit 
faith  in  none.  All  were  learners;  all  were  men  of  peace;  all 
had  a  firm  hold  on  the  plain,  old,  simple  virtues  which  can  not 
be  waived  when  you  make  up  your  formula  for  a  man.  They 
were  industrious,  systematic,  economical,  persistent  and 
physically  sound. 

If  there  is  any  secret  in  the  success  of  the  Scotch  it  lies  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  such  good  animals. 
The  basis  of  life  is  physical. 

The  climate  of  Scotland  makes  for  a  sturdy  manhood  that 
pays  cash  and  seldom  apologizes  for  being  on  earth. 
Unlike  James  Oliver  and  Philip  Armour,  Andrew  Carnegie  is 
small  in  stature.  He  belongs  to  the  type  of  big  little  men,  of 
which  Napoleon,  Aaron  Burr,  Alexander  Hamilton  and 
General  Grant  are  examples — deep-chested,  strong-jawed, 
well-poised  big  little  men  who  wear  the  crowns  of  their  heads 
high  and  their  chins  in.  These  are  good  men  to  agree  with. 
^  They  carry  no  excess  baggage.  They  travel  light.  They  can 
change  their  minds  and  change  their  plans  easily.  Such  men 
take  charge  of  things  by  a  sort  of  divine  right. 


31 


ANDREW  Ippyil^xyilSr^RT^^^^^^  CARNEGIEZwas  born  in 
CARNEGIE    kfs/WlJs*^LK/ilLfv^   decent  poverty  at  Dunfermline  in 

fthe  year  Eighteen  Hundred  and 
Thirty-seven. 

His  father  was  a  weaver  by  trade. 
This  was  in  the  day  of  the  hand- 
loom.  There  were  four  damask- 
looms  in  the  Carnegie  house, 
worked  by  the  family  and  appren- 
tices jt  ^ 

There  was  no  ring-up  clock,  and 
no  walking  delegates. 
When  business  was  good  these  looms  sang  their  merry  tunes 
far  into  the  night.  When  business  was  dull,  perhaps  one  loom 
echoed  its  tired  solo. 

Then  there  came  a  time  when  there  was  no  work ;  hopeless 
melancholy  settled  on  the  little  household,  and  drawn,  anxious 
faces  looked  into  other  faces  from  which  hope  had  fled. 
Steam  was  coming  in,  and  the  factories  were  starving  out  the 
roycrofters.  It  is  hard  to  change — in  order  to  change  your 
mind  you  must  change  your  environment. 
The  merchants  used  to  buy  their  materials  and  take  them  to 
the  weaver,  and  tell  him  how  they  wanted  the  cloth  made. 
^  The  weaver  never  thought  that  he  could  get  up  a  new 
pattern,  buy  materials  and  devise  a  scheme  whereby  one  man 
could  tend  four  looms — or  fourteen — and  advertise  his 
product,  so  the  consumer  would  demand  it,  and  thus  force 
the  merchant  to  buy. 

Aye,  and  if  that  did  n't  work,  the  whole  blooming  bunch  of 
middlemen  who  batten  and  fatten  between  the  factory  and 
family  could  be  eliminated,  and  the  arrogant  retailer,  whole- 
saler, factor  and  agent  be  placed  on  the  retired  list  through 
the  Mail-order  Plan.  Or,  aye  again,  the  consumers'  wants 
could  be  anticipated  as  they  are  by  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
32 


and  the  gentlemanly  salesman,  psychic  in  his  instincts,  would  ANDREW 
be  at  the  door  in  answer  to  your  sincere  desire,  uttered  or  CARNEGIE 
unexpressed  J>  J^ 

When  the  times  changed  Carnegie  the  Elder  was  undone.  A 
few  years  later  and  his  son,  Andy,  could  have  shown  him 
fifty-seven  ways  by  which  the  consumer  could  be  reached. 
^  Andy  would  have  known  only  one  defeat,  and  that  would 
have  come  when  all  the  consumers  were  dead  and  ceased  to 
consume.  When  Carnegie  the  Elder  quit  the  loom,  the  con- 
sumers were  using  more  cloth  than  ever,  but  the  goods  were 
being  made  in  a  new  way.  **  Hunger  is  the  first  incentive  to 
migration, "  says  Adam  Smith. 

Hunger  and  danger  in  right  proportion  are  good  things. 
It  is  a  great  idea  for  a  woman  who  would  give  to  the  world 
superior  sons,  to  marry  a  man  without  too  much  ambition.  If 
too  much  is  done  for  a  woman  she  will  never  do  much  for 
herself.  This  proves  that  she  is  a  human  being,  whether  she 
can  vote  or  not. 

Hunger,  hardship,  deprivation  breed  big  virtues.  Before 
deeds  are  born  they  are  merely  thoughts  or  aspirations.  The 
desire  to  better  her  condition,  and  the  struggle  with  unkind 
fate  on  behalf  of  her  children,  often  is  the  heritage  of  mother 
to  son.  The  mother  endows  the  child  with  a  tendency — a 
great  moral  tendency — a  reaching  out  towards  a  success 
which  she  has  never  seen,  as  planet  responds  to  the  attraction 
of  planet.  And  the  things  she  dreamed  her  child  grown  to 
manhood  makes  come  true.  Temperance  fanatics  are  often 
the  offspring  of  drunken  parents.  Shiftless  fathers  breed 
financiers  ^  jt 
We  are  taught  by  antithesis. 

Andrew  Carnegie  is  the  son  of  his  mother.  When  the  looms 
stopped  and  the  piteous  voice  of  the  father  said,  "Andy,  we 
have  no  work,"  the  mother  lifted  up  her  voice  and  sang  one 
of  the  songs  of  Zion.  There  were  always  morning  prayers. 

33 


ANDREW  fl  When  there  was  no  work,  the  father  would  have  forgotten 
CARNEGIE  the  prayers,  because  there  was  nothing  to  be  thankful  for, 
and  prayer  would  n't  stop  the  steam-factory. 
*' What's  the  use!"  was  the  motto  of  Carnegie  the  Elder. 
qThe  mother  led  the  prayers  just  the  same.  There  was  a 
reading  from  the  Bible.  Then  each  one  present  responded 
with  a  verse  of  Scripture.  Legend  says  that  little  Andy,  once, 
at  seven  years  of  age,  when  it  came  his  turn  to  give  a  verse 
from  the  Bible,  handed  in  this:  **Let  every  tub  stand  on  its 
own  bottom."  But  as  the  quotation  was  not  exactly  accept- 
able, he  tried  again  with  this:  **Take  care  of  the  pence  and 
the  pounds  will  take  care  of  themselves."  Thus  do  we  see 
that  the  orphic  habit  was  already  beginning  to  germinate. 
^  Before  Andrew  Carnegie  was  ten  years  old  he  had  evolved  a 
beautiful  hatred  of  kings,  princes  and  all  hereditary  titles. 
^  There  was  only  one  nobility  for  him,  and  that  was  the 
nobility  of  honest  effort.  To  live  off  another's  labor  was  to 
him  a  sin.  To  eat  and  not  earn  was  a  crime.  These  sterling 
truths  were  the  inheritance  of  mother  to  son.  And  these 
convictions  Andrew  Carnegie  still  holds  and  has  firmly  held 
since  childhood's  days. 

The  other  day  in  reading  a  book  on  military  tactics,  I  came 
across  this:  "An  army  has  but  two  duties  to  perform,  one  is 
to  fight  the  enemy  and  the  other  is  to  evade  the  enemy. " 
Which  duty  is  the  more  important  the  writer  did  not  say. 
^  So  let  that  pass.  There  are  two  ways  of  dealing  with  misery. 
One  is  to  stay  and  fight  the  demon  to  a  finish,  and  the  other 
way  is  to  beat  a  hasty  and  honorable  retreat. 
**There  is  no  work." 

**Then  we  will  go  where  work  is,"  said  the  mother  of  a 
multi-millionaire  to  be. 

The  furniture  went  to  pay  the  grocer.  The  looms  were  sold 
for  a  song.  The  debts  were  paid,  and  there  was  enough,  with 
the  contribution  of  a  ten-pound  note  by  a  fond  uncle,  to  buy 
34 


passage  to  New  York  for  the  father,  mother,  Thomas  and  ANDREW 
Andrew.  It  was  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Forty-eight.  CARNEGIE 
Thomas  was  sixteen,  and  Andrew  was  eleven.  Tom  was  more 
handsome  than  Andy,  but  Andy  had  the  most  to  say. 
The  Carnegies  came  to  Pittsburgh,  because  the  mother's  two 
sisters  from   Dunfermline   were   in   Pittsburgh,   and   they 
had  always  gotten  enough  to  eat.  Then  the  sound  of  the 
name  was  good,  and  to  this  day  Andrew  Carnegie  spells  the 
final  syllable  "burgh,"  and  pronounces  it  with  a  loving  oat- 
meal burr. 

It  was  seven  weeks  in  a  sailing-ship  to  New  York,  and  one 
week  to  Pittsburgh  by  rail  and  raging  canal. 
The  land  of  promise  proved  all  that  had  been  promised. 
The  Carnegies  wanted  jobs — they  did  not  wait  to  accept 
situations.  The  father  found  a  place  in  a  cotton-mill  at  a 
dollar  and  a  half  a  day. 

Andy  slipped  in  as  bobbin-boy  and  got  one  dollar  and  twenty 
cents  a  week.  Five  shillings  a  week,  all  his  own — to  be  laid 
in  his  mother's  lap  each  Saturday  night — spelled  paradise. 
^  He  was  helping  to  support  the  household !  To  know  you  are 
useful,  and  realize  that  you  are  needed,  is  a  great  stimulus  to 
growth.  Never  again  did  the  Carnegies  hear  that  muffled 
groan,  ** There  is  no  work!" 
The  synonym  of  the  word  ** Carnegie"  is  work. 
In  a  year  little  Andy  had  graduated  to  the  boiler-room  at 
two  dollars  a  week.  It  was  twelve  hours  a  day,  a  constant 
watching  of  water-gauges,  and  a  feeling  of  bearings  for 
hot-boxes. 

Andy  used  to  awaken  the  family  in  the  dead  of  the  night  by 
roaring  out  in  hot-mush  accents, "The  boiler,  it  ha'  busted!" 
^  And  being  shaken  into  wakefulness  the  boy  was  much  re- 
lieved to  know  that  it  was  only  a  horrid  dream,  and  the 
factory  had  not  been  blown  into  kingdom  come  because  a  wee 
laddie,  red-headed  and  freckled,  had  nodded  at  his  work. 

35 


ANDREW  **A  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss."  flThis  is  true.  However, 
CARNEGIE  it  is  also  true  that  if  it  does  not  gather  moss,  it  may  acquire 
polish  Ji  jt 

Andrew  Carnegie  from  boyhood  had  the  habit  of  using  his 
head  as  well  as  his  hands.  The  two  years  in  the  boiler  and 
engine  room  of  a  little  factory  did  him  a  lot  of  good. 
But  when  fourteen  he  firmly  felt  that  he  had  to  get  out 
toward  the  sunlight,  just  as  potatoes  in  a  dark  cellar  will 
at  springtime  send  their  sprouts  reaching  out  towards  the 
windows  J^  J^ 

In  Pittsburgh  at  this  time  was  a  young  man  by  the  name  of 
Douglass  Reid,  who  was  born  in  Edinburgh.  On  Sunday 
afternoon,  Reid  used  to  visit  the  Carnegies  and  talk  about  old 
times  and  new.  Reid  was  an  expert  telegraph-operator,  and 
afterwards  wrote  **  A  History  of  the  Telegraph. "  The  more  he 
saw  of  Andy  the  more  sure  he  was  that  the  lad  could  learn 
the  dot  and  dash,  and  be  an  honor  to  the  profession. 
The  Carnegies  had  never  had  a  telegraph  message  come  to 
them,  and  did  n*t  want  one,  for  folks  only  get  messages  when 
some  one  is  dead. 

The  way  you  learned  **the  key"  then  was  to  start  in  as 
messenger,  and  when  there  were  no  messages,  to  hang 
around  the  office  and  pick  up  the  mystery  by  induction. 
q  One  great  drawback  to  acting  as  messenger  was  that  Andy 
did  not  know  the  streets.  So  he  started  in  memorizing  the 
names  of  all  the  business  firms  on  Penn  Avenue,  up  one  side 
and  down  the  other.  Then  he  tackled  Liberty  Street,  Smith- 
field  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue.  At  home  nights,  he  would  shut 
his  eyes  and  call  the  names  until  the  household  cried  for  mercy 
and  shrieked,  "Hold — enough!" 

Before  the  operators  got  around  in  the  morning,  the  boys 
used  the  keys,  calling  up  other  boys  up  and  down  the  line. 
^  Needless  to  say,  young  Andy  did  n't  spend  all  of  his  time 
on  the  streets.  A  substitute  operator  one  day  was  needed  and 

36 


Andy  volunteered  to  fill  the  place.  He  filled  it  so  well  that  the  ANDREW  | 
regular  man,  who  was  a  bit  irregular  in  his  habits,  was  given  CARNEGIE 
a  permanent  vacation. 

At  this  time  all  of  the  telegraph  business  was  taken  care  of 
from  the  railroad-oflces,  just  as  it  is  now  in  most  villages. 
^  "Who  is  the  sandy,  freckled  one?"  once  asked  Thomas 
A.  Scott,  Superintendent  of  the  Pittsburgh  Division  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad. 

"He*s  a  Scot  from  Scotland,  and  his  name  is  Carnegie," 
was  the  answer. 

The  play  on  words  pleased  Mr.  Scott.  He  got  into  the  habit 
of  sending  his  messages  by  young  Carnegie.  And  when  one 
day  he  discovered  the  Scotch  lad  spoke  of  him  as  "Tomscot" 
over  the  wire,  the  economy  of  the  proceeding  so  pleased  him 
that  he  took  Andy  into  his  personal  service  at  a  raise  of  ten 
dollars  a  month.  About  this  time  there  came  a  sleet-storm 
which  carried  down  the  wires. 
Volunteers  who  could  climb  were  in  demand. 
Young  Carnegie's  work  indoors  had  reduced  his  physical 
powers,  so  the  climbing  was  beyond  his  ability.  It  was  a 
pivotal  point.  Had  he  been  able  to  climb  he  might  have 
evolved  into  a  boss  of  a  construction-gang.  As  it  was  he  stuck 
to  his  desk,  and  eventually  owned  the  telegraph-line. 
Thus  did  he  prove  Darwin's  dictum  that  we  are  evolved  by 
our  weakness  quite  as  much  as  through  our  strength. 
Daniel  Webster  once  said  that  the  great  disadvantage  in  the 
practice  of  law  is  that  the  better  you  do  your  work,  the 
more  diflSicult  are  the  cases  that  come  to  you. 
It  is  the  same  in  railroading — or  anything  else,  for  that  matter. 
fl  Cheap  men  can  take  care  of  the  cheap  jobs. 
The  reward  for  all  good  work  is  not  rest,  but  more  work,  and 
harder  work.  Thomas  A.  Scott  was  a  man  of  immense 
initiative,  and  he  was  also  an  immense  joker.  His  was  the 
restless,  tireless,  ambitious  nature  which  makes  up  the  com- 

37 


ANDREW  posite  that  we  call  the  American  Spirit.  ^'*Tomscot"  had 
CARNEGIE  the  initiative  which  not  only  suggests  the  thing,  but  carries 
it  through  to  completion. 

Andrew  Carnegie   very  early  in  life  developed  the  same 
characteristics  J>  jt 

He  never  made  hasty  and  ill-digested  suggestions  and  then 
left  them  to  others  to  carry  out. 

When  young  Carnegie,  just  turned  into  his  twenties,  became 
private  secretary  to  Thomas  A.  Scott,  he  was  getting  along  as 
well,  I  thank  you,  as  could  be  expected. 
And  nobody  was  more  delighted  than  Andy*s  mother — not 
even  Andy  himself.  And  most  of  Andy's  joy  in  his  promotions 
came  from  the  pleasure  which  his  mother  found  in  his 
advancement.  It  was  quite  lover-like,  the  way  Andy  would 
talk  it  all  over  with  her. 

'*I  know  what  you  are  working  for,"  once  said  Scott  to  his 
secretary.  ** You  want  my  job." 

**  And  I  *11  have  it  as  sure  as  life,"  replied  Andy,  as  he  went 
right  along  with  his  work, 
'*You  certainly  will,"  said  Scott.  And  it  was  so. 


38 


HEN  Thomas  A.  Scott  became  ANDREW 
President  of  the  Pennsylvania  CARNEGIE 
Railroad,  Andrew  Carnegie  became 
Superintendent  of  the  Pittsburgh 
Division,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
His  salary  was  fifteen  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year.  And  this  was  the  top- 
most turret  of  the  tower :  it  was  as 
far  as  the  ambition  of  either  the 
mother  or  the  young  man  could 
fly.  But  the  end  was  not  yet. 
Thomas  Alexander  Scott  was  born 
at  the  forgotten  hamlet  of  London,  Franklin  County,  Penn- 
sylvania. London,  Pennsylvania,  did  not  flourish  as  its 
founders  had  expected.  Behold  the  folly  of  giving  big  names 
to  little  things !  Caesar  Augustus  Jones  used  to  be  the  town 
fool  of  East  Aurora,  until  he  was  crowded  to  the  wall  by 
Oliver  Cromwell  Robinson. 

Scott  walked  out  of  his  native  village — a  lad  of  ten  who 
warmed  his  feet  on  October  mornings  where  the  cows  had 
lain  down.  Later  he  came  back  and  bought  the  county. 
Scott  was  a  graduate  of  the  University  of  Hard  Knocks,  and 
he  also  took  several  post-graduate  courses.  He  received 
knocks  all  his  life — and  gave  them. 

His  parents  had  come  from  bonny  Scotland,  and  it  was  a  joke 
along  the  whole  line  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  that  a  man 
with  red  hair  and  a  hot-mush  brogue  could  always  get  a  job 
by  shouting  **hoot,  moni"  at  "Tomscot.** 
Scott  loved  Andy  as  well,  probably,  as  he  ever  loved  any  one 
outside  of  his  own  family.  He  loved  him  because  he  was 
Scotch,  and  he  loved  him  because  he  rounded  up  every  task 
that  he  attempted.  He  loved  him  because  he  smiled  at 
difficulty ;  and  he  loved  him  because  he  never  talked  back  and 
said,  **We  never  did  it  that  way  before." 

39 


ANDREW  In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Sixty-one,  President  Lincoln  made 

CARNEGIE  Simon  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania,  Secretary  of  War.  Cameron 

was  awfully  Scotch,  although  I  believe  he  was  accidentally 

born  in  America.  Cameron  in  time  made  Thomas  A.  Scott 

Assistant  Secretary  of  War. 

And  Thomas  A.  Scott  made  Andrew  Carnegie  Superintendent 
of  United  States  Railways  and  Telegraphs.  Lincoln  once 
said  that  it  was  the  most  difficult  and  exacting  position  in 
the  whole  government  service. 

The  bent  of  the  minds  of  both  Scott  and  Carnegie  was  towards 
construction  and  peace. 

They  were  builders,  financiers  and  diplomats. 
They  accepted  government  position  as  a  duty  and  they  did 
their  work  nobly  and  well.  But  if  these  men  had  had  their  way 
there  would  have  been  no  war.  They  would  have  bought  the 
slaves  and  paid  for  them,  and  at  a  price  which  we  have  paid 
out  for  pensions  and  interest  on  the  war  debt  every  year 
since.  They  would  have  organized  the  South  on  an  industrial 
basis  and  made  it  blossom  like  the  rose,  instead  of  stripping 
it  and  starving  it  into  a  dogged  submission. 
The  lessons  Carnegie  learned  in  war-time  burned  deep  into 
his  soul,  and  helped  to  make  him  as  he  is  today,  the  foremost 
exponent  of  international  disarmament  in  the  world. 
The  game  of  finance  Carnegie  learned  from  Scott,  his  foster- 
father  Ji>  ^ 

When  but  a  salaried  clerk  Carnegie  was  once  called  into 
Scott's  office.  **Andy,  I  know  where  you  can  buy  ten  shares 
of  Adams*  Express  stock — you  better  get  it  I" 
**But  I  have  no  money,"  said  Andy. 
**Then  go  out  and  borrow  some!" 

And  Andy  did,  the  mother  mortgaging  their  little  home  to 
raise  the  money— she  never  failed  her  Andy. 
He  bought  the  stock  at  par.  It  was  worth  a  third  more,  and 
paid  dividends  ** every  few  minutes,"  to  use  the  phrase  of 
40 


Scott.  There  is  a  suspicion  that  Scott  threw  this  little  block  of  ANDREW 
stock  in  the  way  of  Andy  on  purpose.  CARNEGIE 

It  was  an  object-lesson  in  finance.  Scott  taught  by  indirection 
and  did  good  by  stealth. 

When  Carnegie  helped  to  organize  the  Woodruff  Sleeping  Car 
Company,  which  later  was  absorbed  by  the  Pullman  Com- 
pany, he  was  well  out  on  the  highway  to  fortune.  Next  came 
investments  in  oil-lands,  and  Andrew  Carnegie,  twenty-seven 
years  of  age,  sold  his  oil  interests  for  a  decently  few  hundred 
thousand  dollars. 

At  this  time  all  of  the  bridges  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
were  made  of  wood.  It  was  a  wooded  country,  and  the  natural 
thing  was  to  use  the  material  at  hand. 
But  there  were  fires,  accidents,  washouts,  and  the  prophetic 
vision  of  Andrew  Carnegie  foresaw  a  time  when  all  railroad- 
bridges  would  be  made  of  iron. 

He  organized  the  Keystone  Bridge  Works,  and  took  a  con- 
tract to  build  a  railroad-bridge  across  the  Ohio  River. 
The  work  was  a'success,  and  practically  the  Keystone  Bridge 
Works  was  without  a  competitor  in  America.  But  America 
was  buying  most  of  her  iron  in  Birmingham. 
In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Sixty-eight,  Andrew  Carnegie  made 
a  trip  to  Europe,  taking  his  mother  with  him.  He  was  then 
thirty-one  years  old  and  a  man  of  recognized  worth  and 
power.  The  pride  of  the  mother  in  her  son  was  modest  yet 
profound,  and  his  regard  for  her  judgment,  even  in  bridge- 
building  and  railroad  affairs,  was  sincere  and  earnest. 
Besides,  she  was  a  good  listener,  and  by  explaining  his  plans  to 
his  mother,  Andy  got  them  straight  in  his  own  mind. 
The  trip  to  Europe  was  for  the  double /purpose  of  seeing 
whether  old  Dunfermline  was  really  the  delightful  spot  that 
memory  pictured,  and  of  getting  the  latest  points  in  bridge- 
building  and  iron-making. 

Timber  was  scarce  in  England  and  iroH  bridges  and  iron  boats 

41 


ANDREW  were  coming  as  an  actual  necessity.  ^  Sir  Henry  Bessemer 
CARNEGIE  had  invented  his  process  of  blowing  a  blast  of  cold  air 
through  the  molten  metal  and  thus  converting  iron  into 
steel.  The  plan  was  simple,  easy  and  effective. 
The  distinguishing  feature  of  Andrew  Carnegie's  mind  has 
always  been  his  ability  to  put  salt  on  the  tail  of  an  idea. 
He  came  back  from  England  with  the  Bessemer  process  well 
outlined  in  his  square  red  head.  Others  had  put  the  invention 
through  the  experimental  stage — he  waited.  That  shows  your 
good  railroad  man.  Let  your  inventors  invent — most  of  their 
inventions  are  worthless — when  the  thing  is  right  we  will 
take  it  on. 
•  The  Carnegie  fortune  owes  its  secret  to  the  Bessemer  steel 
rail.  The  fish-plate  instead  of  the  frog,  and  the  steel  rail  in 
place  of  the  good  old  snake-head!  "The  song  of  the  rail** 
died  out  to  a  low  continuous  hum  when  Carnegie  began 
making  steel  rails  and  showed  the  section-hands  how  to 
bolt  them  together  as  one. 

Andrew  Carnegie  was  a  practical  railroad  man.  He  knew  the 
buyers  of  supplies  and  he  knew  how  to  convince  them  that 
they  needed  his  product. 

Manufacturing  is  a  matter  of  formula,  but  salesmanship  is 
genius.  Moreover,  to  get  the  money  to  equip  great  factories 
is  genius,  and  up  to  the  nineties  the  Carnegie  Mills  were 
immense  borrowers  of  capital. 

Our  socialistic  friends  sometimes  criticize  Andrew  Carnegie 
for  making  the  vast  amount  of  money  which  he  has. 
We  can't  swear  a  halibi  for  him,  and  so  my  excuse  for  the 
man  is  this :  He  never  knew  it  was  loaded — it  was  largely 
accidental.  In  truth  he  could  n*t  help  making  the  money. 
fl  Fate  forced  it  on  him. 

He  has  played  this  game  of  business  for  all  there  was  in  him. 
^  And  he  has  played  it  according  to  the  rules.  Carnegie  has 
never  been  a  speculator.  He  is  no  gambler.  He  never  bought 
42 


a  share  of  stock  on  margin  in  his  life.  The  only  thing  he  has  ANDREW 

ever  bet  on  has  been  his  ability  to  execute.  QHe  has  been  a  CARNEGIE 

creator  and  a  builder. 

That  his  efforts  should  have  brought  him  this  tremendous 

harvest  of  dolodocci  is  a  surprise  to  him. 

He  knew  there  would  be  a  return,  but  the  size  of  the  return  no 

living  man  was  able  to  foresee  or  foretell. 

Andrew  Carnegie  has  acted  on  the  times,  and  the  times  have 

acted  on  him.  He  is  a  product — a  child,  if  you  please — of 

Opportunity  and  Divine  Energy. 


HEN  James  Anderson,  of  Allegheny, 
Pennsylvania,  stage-coach  boss 
and  ironmaster,  about  the  year 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty  threw 
open  his  library  to  the  public,  he 
did  a  great  thing. 
Anderson  owned  four  or  five 
hundred  books.  Any  one  who 
wanted  to  read  these  books  was 
welcome  to  do  so.  Especially  were 
the  boys  made  welcome. 
Anderson  did  not  know  what  a 
portentous  thing  he  was  doing — nobody  does  when  he  does 
a  big  thing.  Actions  bear  fruit — sometimes. 
And  into  Anderson's  library,  one  Sunday  afternoon,  walked  a 
diffident,  wee  Scotch  laddie,  who  worked  in  a  boiler-room  all 
the  week.  *' Where  would  you  like  to  begin?"  asked  Mr. 
Anderson,  kindly.  And  the  boy  answered,  as  another  boy  by 
the  name  of  Thomas  A.  Edison  answered  on  a  like  occa- 
sion, "If  you  please,  I  '11  begin  here."  And  he  pointed  to  the 

43 


ANDREW  end  of  a  shelf.  And  he  read  through  that  library,  a  shelf  at  a 
CARNEGIE  time.  He  got  the  library  habit. 

Andrew  Carnegie  has  given  away  two  thousand  libraries. 
^  The  first  library  built  by  Mr.  Carnegie  was  in  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Eighty-seven,  at  Braddock,  Pennsylvania.  This 
was  for  the  benefit,  primarily,  of  the  employees  of  the 
Carnegie  Steel  Works. 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Eighty-nine,  it  was  suggested  that 
the  city  of  Allegheny  was  in  need  of  a  library,  quite  as  much 
as  was  Braddock. 

Mr.  Carnegie  proposed  to  build  a  library,  art-gallery  and 
music-hall  combined,  at  a  cost  of  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  provided  the  city  would  supply  the  site,  and  agree  to 
raise  fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year  for  maintenance. 
The  offer  was  accepted  and  the  building  built,  but  at  a  cost  of 
nearly  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  more  than  was  expected. 
^  Yet  Mr.  Carnegie  did  not  complain.  To  show  that  his  heart 
was  with  the  venture,  he  also  presented  a  ten-thousand-dollar 
organ  for  the  hall. 

It  was  a  first  attempt,  but  the  "North  Side  Library"  is  a 
model  of  beauty  and  convenience  today. 
The   way   in   which   the   people   of   Allegheny   awakened, 
responded,   and  availed  themselves  of  the  benefits  to  be 
obtained  from  the  Carnegie  Library  at  Allegheny  was  most 
gratifying.  The  place  was  formally  dedicated  on  February 
Thirteenth,  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ninety. 
President  Harrison  was  present  and  made  an  address. 
The  music  for  the  occasion  was  supplied  by  **  Young  Dam- 
rosch"  and  his  orchestra. 

Leopold  Damrosch,  the  noted  leader,  had  died  only  a  few  years 
before,  and  his  son  Walter  had  taken  up  his  work. 
The  manly  ways  of  ** Young  Damrosch"  and  his  superb  skill 
as  a  conductor  made  an  impression  on  Mr.  Carnegie  then 
and  there  that  bore  speedy  fruit. 
44 


In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ninety-one,  Mr.  Carnegie  built  the  ANDREW 
Carnegie  Music  Hall  at  Fifty-seventh  Street  and  Seventh  CARNEGIE 
Avenue  in  New  York,  especially  with  Walter  Damrosch  and 
the  Damrosch  needs  in  mind. 

I  have  spoken  in  this  hall  a  score  and  more  of  times,  and  I 
never  stand  upon  its  spacious  platform  but  that  I  think  with 
admiration  of  the  ironmaster  who  had  the  courage  to  back 
with  two  million  dollars  his  faith  in  the  musical  appreciation 
of  New  York  City. 

It  is  good  to  know  that  the  prophetic  business  instincts  of  Mr. 
Carnegie  did  not  here  play  him  false.  The  various  offices  and 
studios  connected  with  the  splendid  auditorium  were  quickly 
rented  and  the  investment  has  paid  a  fair  return  from  the 
first.  When  it  was  built  it  was  the  noblest  auditorium  in 
America.  One  of  its  chief  benefits  has  been  to  show  the 
people  of  America  that  such  a  building  will  pay.  For  one 
thing,  it  gave  certain  Western  capitalists  heart  to  erect  the 
Fine  Arts  Building  in  Chicago. 

And  now  in  a  dozen  cities  of  the  United  States  there  are  great 
auditoriums  where  big  events — musical  and  oratorical — 
bring  the  people  together  in  a  way  that  enlarges  their  spiritual 
horizon.  Andrew  Carnegie  has  ever  had  a  passion  for  music. 
At  Skibo  Castle  the  meals  are  announced  by  bagpipe  J>  Of 
course  I  admit  that  whether  the  bagpipe  is  a  musical  instru- 
ment or  not  is  a  matter  of  argument,  for  just  what  constitutes 
music  my  Irish  friend,  George  Bernard  Shaw,  says  is  a  point 
of  view. 

Andrew  Carnegie  has  given  the  musical  interests  of  America 
an  immense  impulse.  His  presentation  of  pipe-organs  to 
churches,  schools  and  halls  bids  fair  to  revive  the  age  of 
Sebastian  Bach.  **  Music  helps  us  to  get  rid  of  our  whims, 
prejudices  and  petty  notions, "  says  Andrew  Carnegie. 
The  famous  Pittsburgh  Orchestra  was  first  made  possible  by 
his  encouragement,  and  without  Carnegie  we  would  have  had 

45 


ANDREW  no  Damrosch,  or  at  least  a  different  Damrosch.  ^From 
CARNEGIE  almost  its  inauguration,  Mr.  Carnegie  has  been  President  of 
the  New  York  Oratorio,  and  for  many  years  President  of  the 
Philharmonic  Society. 

I  was  once  present  at  a  meeting  of  this  Society  when  a 
memorial  volume  of  thanks  from  '*The  Philharmonic"  was 
presented  to  Mr.  Carnegie.  The  book  contained  the  auto- 
graphs of  every  member,  working  and  honorary,  of  the 
association.  Among  the  rest  I  added  my  name  to  the  list  ^ 
Shortly  after  the  presentation  exercises  I  met  Mr.  Carnegie 
on  the  stairs.  He  had  the  book  under  his  arm.  He  graciously 
thanked  me  for  adding  my  name,  and  spoke  of  how  he  prized 
my  autograph. 

I  replied  somewhat  loftily,  "Oh,  don't  mention  it — it  is 
nothing — it  is  nothing!"  And  then  I  felt  how  feeble  my 
attempted  pleasantry  was.  To  Mr.  Carnegie  it  was  no  joke.  In 
fact,  he  was  as  tickled  with  his  book  of  names,  and  its 
assurance  of  affection,  as  a  girl  who  has  just  been  presented 
by  her  lover  with  a  volume  of  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox's  poems. 
Then  I  saw  how  sensitive  and  tender  is  the  heart  of  this  most 
busy  man,  and  how  precious  to  him  is  human  fellowship. 
q  This  is  a  side  of  his  nature  that  was  new  to  me. 
Shakespeare  says,  "Sad  is  the  lot  of  princes."  They  are 
pushed  out  and  away  from  .the  common  heart  of  humanity. 
Most  of  the  men  they  meet  want  something,  and  as  these 
folks  want  the  thing  they  want  awful  bad,  they  never  tell  the 
prince  the  truth.  In  his  presence  they  are  like  brass  monkeys, 
or,  more  properly,  like  monkeys  filled  with  monkey  desires. 
^  They  are  shorn  of  all  human  attributes. 
Pity  the  lot  of  the  multi-millionaire  who  has  most  incau- 
tiously allowed  it  to  become  known  that  he  considers  it  "a 
disgrace  for  any  man  to  die  rich." 

Five  hundred  letters  a  day  are  sent  to  Andrew  Carnegie,  with 
suggestions  concerning  the  best  way  in  which  he  can  escape 
46 


disgrace.  The  lazzaroni  of  America  are  as  bad  as  the  same  ANDREW 
tribe  in  Italy,  only  they  play  for  bigger  stakes.  The  altruistic  CARNEGIE 
graft  is  as  greedy  as  the  grab  of  commercialism,  that  much 
berated  thing. 

Mr.  Carnegie  cannot  walk  a  block  on  Broadway  without 
being  beset  by  would-be  philanthropists  who  offer  to  pit  their 
time  against  his  money,  and  thereby  redeem  the  world  from 
its  sin  and  folly. 

And  these  philanthropists  do  not  realize  for  a  moment  that 
they  are,  for  the  most  part,  plain  grabheimers  from  Grabville. 
^  And  all  of  their  pious  plans  for  human  betterment  have 
their  root  in  a  selfish  desire  for  personal  aggrandizement. 
Mr.  Carnegie's  plan  of  giving  only  where  the  parties  them- 
selves also  agree  to  give  is  a  most  wise  and  prudent  move. 
^  The  town  that  accepts  thirty  thousand  dollars  for  a  library, 
and  agrees  to  raise  three  thousand  a  year  to  maintain  it,  is 
neither  pamperized,  patronized,  nor  pauperized.  In  ten  years 
the  town  has  put  as  much  money  into  the  venture  as  did  Mr. 
Carnegie  ^  J^ 

Like  Nature,  Andrew  Carnegie  is  a  good  deal  of  a  schemer. 
Ask  a  town  to  start  in  and  raise  three  thousand  dollars  a  year 
for  library  purposes,  and  the  whole  Common  Council,  His 
Honor  the  Mayor,  and  the  Board  of  Education  will  throw  a 
cataleptic  fit.  But  get  them  fired  with  a  desire  to  secure  thirty 
thousand  dollars  from  Mr.  Carnegie,  and  they  make  the 
promise  to  love,  honor,  obey — and  maintain — and  strangely 
enough,  they  do. 

An  action  for  non-support  is  a  mighty  disgraceful  thing. 
It  is  a  wonderful  bit  of  psychology — this  giving  with  an 
obligation — and  Andrew  Carnegie  is  not  only  the  Prince  of 
Ironmasters,  but  he  is  a  pedagogic  prestidigitator,  and  an 
artistic  financial  hypnotist. 

Not  only  does  he  give  the  library,  but  he  sets  half  the  town 
hustling  to  maintain  it. 

47 


ANDREW  The  actual  good  comes,  not  from  the  library  building,  but 

CARNEGIE  from  the  human  impulses  set  in  motion — the  direction  given 

to  thousands  of  lives.  The  library  is  merely  an  excuse — a 

rallying-point — and  around  it  swings  and  centers  the  best  life 

of  the  town. 

This  working  for  a  common  cause  dilutes  the  sectarian  ego, 
dissolves  village  caste,  makes  neighbor  acquainted  with 
neighbor,  and  liberates  a  vast  amount  of  human  love,  which 
otherwise  would  remain  hermetically  sealed. 
Gossip  is  only  the  lack  of  a  worthy  theme.  A  town  library 
supplies  topics  for  talk,  and  the  books  there  supply  ten 
thousand  more. 

To  accept  a  Carnegie  library  means  to  take  on  an  obligation. 
^  Achievement  always  stands  for  responsibility.  "Is  it 
possible  that  you  are  nervous?"  asked  the  man  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  when  the  orator  was  about  to  appear  before  an 
audience  ^  ^ 

**Young  man,"  was  the  reply,  "young  man,  I  have  spoken 
well. "  To  have  done  well  and  then  live  up  to  your  record  is  a 
serious  matter.  Responsibility  is  ballast.  A  town  that  has  taken 
on  a  Carnegie  Library  is  one  big  committee  intent  on  making 
the  thing  a  success. 

There  is  furniture  needed,  pictures  to  secure,  statuary  to 
select,  books  to  buy. 

A  Carnegie  Library  is  usually  an  annex  to  the  High  School. 
^  The  whole  intellectual  force  of  the  place  is  engaged,  first  in 
making  the  library  a  success,  and  second  in  avoiding  the 
disgrace  of  failure. 

To  gain  paradise  and  escape  perdition  are  two  powerful  factors 
■ — a  fulcrum  and  a  pry. 

0  most  clever,  cunning  and  canny  Carnegie !  did  you  know 
how  great  and  wise  was  your  scheme? 
Not  at  all,  any  more  than  when  you  were  a  bobbin-boy  you 
could  have  guessed  that  one  day  you  would  own  two  hundred 

48 


and  fifty  million  dollars  in  five-per-cent  bonds.  You  are 
much  astonished  as  any  one  to  see  the  perfection  of  your  plan. 
Like  all  great  men  you  sail  under  sealed  orders. 
As  you  "worked"  the  people  by  allowing  them  to  "work" 
you  for  a  gift,  which  once  secured  turns  out  not  to  be  a  gift 
but  a  responsibility,  so  has  a  Supreme  Something  been  using 
you  for  a  purpose  you  wist  and  wot  not  of. 
And  the  end  is  not  yet. 


ANDREW 
CARNEGIE 


R.  CARNEGIE  has  hoisted  more 
ammunition  into  his  fighting-top 
than  any  other  millionaire  in  Amer- 
ica, or,  so  far  as  I  know,  than  any 
other  millionaire  who  ever  lived, 
q  He  has  read  political  history ;  he 
knows  the  history  of  economics; 
he  loves  literature;  he  dips  into 
philosophy;  his  taste  is  good  in 
architecture;  he  understands  psy- 
chology; and  he  appreciates  art, 
poetry  and  music.  This  is  an  equip- 
ment which,  for  a  very  rich  man,  sets  him  apart  in  a  class 
by  himself.  Judge  Jere  Black  said  that  the  mind  of  an 
average  millionaire  is  a  howling  wilderness.  But  Andrew 
Carnegie  is  a  very  exceptional  millionaire. 
Mr.  Carnegie  is  an  amateur  millionaire,  as  opposed  to  the 
professional  money-getter — the  difference  being  this :  your 
professional  money-maker  knows  how  to  get  money,  but 
your  amateur  knows  not  only  how  to  get  it  but  how  to 
spend  it. 

As  a  writer  and  thinker,  Mr.  Carnegie  has  added  one  distinct 

49 


ANDREW  Jiew  chapter  to  the  world  of  thought.  This  is  his  "Gospel  of 
CARNEGIE  Wealth."  I  say  **his"  advisedly,  for  no  one  has  ever  put  the 
matter  in  the  same  light  before,  in  all  the  realm  of  books. 
^In  this  "Gospel  of  Wealth,"  Mr.  Carnegie  makes  two  separate 
and  distinct  divisions.  One  is  the  advantage  and  blessing  of 
poverty;  and  the  other  is  the  responsibility  that  falls  on  the 
man  who  has  surplus  wealth. 

I  give  two  paragraphs  from  Mr.  Carnegie's  essay  which 
present  the  crux  of  his  argument.  But  every  thinking  man 
and  woman  would  do  well  to  read  and  ponder  all  that  Mr. 
Carnegie  has  to  say  on  this  subject  of  surplus  wealth. 
Most  Carnegie  Libraries  have  Mr.  Carnegie's  books,  but  I 
heard  of  one  that  tabooed  them,  first  because  Mr.  Carnegie  is 
not  a  member  of  a  church ;  and  second,  on  the  plea  that  his 
books  are  unbiblical  in  their  attitude,  on  the  questions  of 
poverty  and  wealth,  and  therefore  fall  into  the  category  of 
** objectionable  literature." 
Says  Mr.  Carnegie: 

The  day  is  not  far  distant,  when  the  man  who  dies,  leaving 
behind  him  millions  of  available  wealth  which  was  free  for 
him  to  administer  during  life,  will  pass  away  unwept,  un- 
honored  and  unsung,  no  matter  to  what  use  he  leaves  the 
dross  which  he  cannot  take  with  him.  Of  such  as  these  the 
public  verdict  will  be,  **The  man  who  dies  thus  rich  dies 
disgraced. "  Such,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  true  gospel  concern- 
ing wealth,  obedience  to  which  is  destined  some  day  to  solve 
the  problem  of  rich  and  poor,  and  to  bring  peace  on  earth  and 
good  will  to  men. 

The  aim  of  the  millionaire  should  be,  first,  to  set  an  example 
of  modest,  unostentatious  living,  shunning  display  and  extrav- 
agances ;  to  provide  moderately  for  the  legitimate  wants  of 
those  dependent  upon  him;  after  doing  so  to  consider  all 
surplus  revenues  which  come  to  him  simply  as  trust  funds 
which  he  is  called  upon  to  administer,  and  strictly  bound  as 
a  matter  of  duty  to  administer  in  the  manner  which  in  his 
judgment  is  best  calculated  to  benefit  the  community.  The 
TiO 


man  of  wealth  thus  becomes  the  mere  agent  and  trustee  for  ANDREW 
his  poorer  brethren,  bringing  to  their  service  his  superior  c^RNEGIE 
wisdom,  experience  and  ability  to  administer,  and  doing  for 
them  better  than  they  could  or  would  do  for  themselves. 


HE  only  time  I  ever  heard  Mr. 
Carnegie  relate  one  of  my  pleasing 
stories  was  at  a  banquet  of  railroad 
officials,  some  months  ago,  in  New 
York.  Be  it  said,  as  a  matter  of 
truth,  that  Mr.  Carnegie  gave  me 
due  credit,  although  if  he  had  not 
mentioned  my  name  I  would  have 
been  complimented  to  know  that 
he  had  read  the  Good  Stuff  closely 
and  pondered  it  well. 
As  brother  authors,  you  will  please 

take  notice  that  we  observe  the  amenities. 

So  here  is  the  story:  One  lowering  fall  day  I  was  walking 

along  the  road  that  leads  from  the  village  to  my  farm,  two 

miles  out  of  town. 

And  as  I  trudged  along  I  saw  a  horseshoe  in  the  middle  of  the 

road.  Now  I  never  go  by  a  horseshoe — it  means  good  luck ! 

^  So  I  picked  up  the  horseshoe,  and  instantly  my  psychic  sky 

seemed  to  brighten. 

And  as  I  walked  along  with  the  horseshoe  in  my  hand  I  saw 

another  horseshoe  in  the  road. 

**Everything  is  coming  my  way,'*  I  said.  I  picked  up  the 

second  horseshoe,  and  then  I  had  one  in  each  hand. 

I  had  gone  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  when  I  saw  two  more 

horseshoes  right  together  in  the  road. 

51 


ANDREW   **It  seems  as  if  some  one  is  working  me,"  I  said.  I  looked 

CARNEGIE   around  and  could  see  no  one.  **And  anyway,  I  accept  the 

bluff,"  I  said  to  myself,  as  I  picked  up  the  two  horseshoes. 

^  Then  I  had  two  horseshoes  in  each  hand,  but  I  was  n*t  four 

times  as  happy  as  when  I  had  one. 

I  had  gone  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  when  I  saw  a  pile  of 
horseshoes  in  the  road. 
*<I  »ve  got  *em,  I  fear!"  I  said  to  myself. 
But  I  braced  up  and  walking  up  to  the  pile  of  horseshoes  I 
kicked  into  them.  They  were  horseshoes  all  right. 
And  just  then  I  saw  a  man  coming  down  the  street  picking  up 
horseshoes  in  a  bag. 

I  watched  him  with  dazed  eyes  and  swallowed  hard  as  I  tried 
to  comprehend  the  meaning  of  this  strange  combination. 
Just  then  I  saw  the  man's  horse  and  wagon  ahead. 
He  was  a  junk  gentleman  and  had  lost  the  tail-board  out  of 
his  wagon  and  had  been  strewing  horseshoes  all  along  the 
way.  He  called  to  me  and  said,  "Hey,  ol'  man,  dem's  my 
horse-shoes ! " 

**I  know, "  said  I,  '*I  Ve  been  picking  them  up  for  you." 
And  the  moral  is  this :  While  it  is  true  that  one  horseshoe 
brings  you  good  luck,  a  load  of  horseshoes  is  junk. 


52 


N  way  of  personal  endowments,  ANDREW 
Mr.  Carnegie  has  favored  two  CARNEGIE 
individuals,  Booker  T.  Washing- 
ton and  Luther  Burbank.  And  so 
far  as  I  know  these  are  the  only 
two  men  in  America  who  should 
be  endowed. 

Even  the  closest  search,  as  well  as 
a  careful  scrutiny  in  the  mirror, 
fails  to  find  any  one  else  whom  it 
would  be  wise  or  safe  to  make  im- 
mune from  the  struggle. 
To  make  a  man  secure  against  the  exigencies  of  life  is  to  kill 
his  ambition  and  destroy  his  incentive.  To  transform  a  man 
into  a  jellyfish,  give  him  a  fixed  allowance,  regardless  of 
what  he  does.  This  truth  also  applies  to  women.  Women  will 
never  be  free  until  they  are  economically  free. 
The  fifteen  million  dollars  which  Mr.  Carnegie  has  given  for 
a  pension-fund  for  superannuated  college  professors,  is  quite 
another  thing  from  pensioning  a  man  so  he  will  be  free  to 
work  out  his  ideal. 

The  only  people  who  have  ideals  are  those  in  the  fight. 
But  even  this  beneficent  pension-fund  for  teachers  turned 
out  to  grass  requires  the  most  delicate  and  skilful  handling. 
^  Several  instances  have  already  arisen  where  colleges  have 
retired  men  well  able  to  work,  in  order  that  these  men  might 
secure  the  pensions  and  the  college  could  put  in  younger 
men  at  half  the  pay.  There  has  even  been  a  suspicion  that 
the  pensioner  "divied"  with  the  college. 
To  supply  an  incentive  or  temptation  for  a  man  in  middle 
life  to  quit  work  in  order  that  he  may  secure  a  pension  is  a 
danger  which  the  donor  mildly  anticipated,  but  which  he 
finds  very  hard  to  guard  against.  What  is  **middle  life"? 
Ah,  it  depends  upon  the  man.  Some  men  are  young  at  seventy, 

53 


ANDREW  and  Professor  Mommsen  at  eighty  was  at  the  very  height  of 
CARNEGIE  his  power.  Some  teachers  want  to  **retire,"  others  don't. 
^  Nature  knows  nothing  of  pensions.  Let  each  man  be  paid  for 
his  labor  and  let  him  understand  that  economy  of  expendi- 
ture is  the  true  and  only  insurance  against  want  in  old  age. 
^  The  pensioning  of  the  youth  is  really  more  dangerous  than 
to  pension  age.  The  youth  should  ask  for  nothing  but  op- 
portunity. To  make  him  immune  from  work  and  economy  is 
to  supply  him  a  ticket — one  way — to  Matteawan. 
In  order  to  educate  a  boy  for  life,  we  should  not  lift  him  out 
of  life.  The  training  for  life  should  slide  into  life  at  an  un- 
known and  unrecognizable  point.  The  boy  born  into  poverty, 
who  fetches  in  wood  for  his  mother  and  goes  after  the  cows, 
has  already  entered  upon  a  career.  His  brown  bare  feet  are 
carrying  messages,  and  his  hands  are  taking  on  the  habit  of 
helpfulness.  He  is  getting  under  the  burden ;  and  such  a  one 
will  never  be  a  parasite  on  society. 

In  East  Aurora  there  used  to  live  a  noted  horseman.  He  bred, 
raised,  trained,  and  drove  several  trotters  that  made  world's 
records.  Then  behold  another  man  comes  on  the  scene — 
and  a  good  man,  too — and  says:  '*Go  to,  I  will  raise  and 
train  horses  that  will  go  so  fast  that  Pa  Hamlin's  horses 
will  do  only  for  the  plow. " 

So  he  built  a  covered  and  enclosed  track,  a  mile  around.  It 
cost  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  And  here  the  wise 
one  was  to  train  his  colts  all  winter,  while  the  other  man's 
horses  ran  barefoot,  and  with  long  woolly  coats  plowed 
through  snow-drifts  awaiting  for  spring  to  come  with  chirrup 
of  birds  and  good  roads. 

Result — the  man  with  the  covered  track  had  his  horses  **fit" 
in  April,  but  in  July  and  August  when  the  races  were  to  begin 
they  had  "gone  past."  Moreover,  it  was  discovered  that 
horses  trained  on  a  covered  track  could  not  be  raced  with 
safety  on  an  open  course.  ^  The  roofed  track  had  shut  the 
54 


horse  in,  giving  him  a  feeling  of  protection  and  safety ;  but  ANDREW 
when  he  got  on  an  open  track,  the  sun,  the  sky,  the  crowds,  CARNEGIE 
the  moving  vehicles  sent  him  into  a  nervous  dance.  A  bird 
flying  overhead  would  stampede  him.  He  lost  his  head  and 
wore  out  his  nerve. 

But  the  horses  that  had  been  woolly  in  February  grew  sleek 
in  May,  and  being  trained  in  the  open  grew  used  to  the 
sights,  and  for  them  every  day  was  a  race-day.  In  August  they 
were  hard  and  cool  and  level-headed,  and  always  had  one 
link  left  when  called  upon  at  the  home  stretch. 
The  covered  track  was  all  right  in  theory,  but  false  in  prac- 
tice. It  ruined  a  thousand  colts,  and  never  produced  a  single 
trotter.  Don't  train  either  horses  or  children  indoors,  and 
out  of  season,  and  expect  a  world-beater. 
Next,  make  your  teaching  and  training  life,  not  an  indoor 
make-believe.  The  school  that  approximates  life  will  be  the 
school  whose  pupils  make  records.  What  is  needed  now  is  a 
line  of  colleges  in  the  North  that  will  do  for  white  folks  what 
Booker  T.  Washington  does  for  the  colored.  And  the  reason 
we  do  not  have  such  schools  is  because  we  have  not  yet  evolved 
men  big  enough  as  teachers  to  couple  business  and  books. 
^  The  men  who  can  make  money  can't  teach,  and  those  who 
can  teach  can't  make  money.  The  man  of  the  future  will  do 
both.  Tuskeegee  has  no  servants,  no  menials,  and  employs 
no  laborers.  The  work  of  housing  and  feeding  two  thousand 
persons  is  all  student  labor.  This  is  a  great  achievement. 
But  the  University  that  is  to  come  will  go  beyond  Tuskeegee  in 
this :  it  will  supply  commodities  to  supply  to  the  world  what 
the  world  wants. 

Three  or  four  hours  of  manual  labor  a  day  will  not  harm 
either  the  body  or  brain  of  a  growing  youth.  On  the  other 
hand  it  will  give  steadiness  to  life.  This  labor  will  be  paid  for, 
so  the  student  will  be  independent  at  all  times  from  all  out- 
side help  J^  This  will  make  for  manhood  and  self-reliance. 

55 


ANDREW 
CARNEGIE 


R.  CARNEGIE  has  given  no  money 
to  universities. 

Various  Technical  Schools  have 
been  greatly  assisted,  however,  at 
his  hands. 

The  college  that  teaches  men  and 
women  how  to  earn  a  living — how 
to  add  to  the  wealth  and  happiness 
of  the  world  and  how  to  make  men 
useful  instead  of  ornamental — this 
kind  of  a  school  interests  Andrew 
Carnegie.  His  criticisms  on  the 
old-time  universities  have  been  temperate,  just  as  his  ideas 
concerning  churches  have  not  been  offensively  pressed.  But 
he  has  let  the  public  know  that  just  as  a  sect  ministers,  at 
best,  to  only  a  fraction  of  the  community,  so  does  the  educa- 
tion de  luxe  have  its  grave  limitations. 
Mr.  Carnegie  knows  that  the  great  universities,  like  Oxford, 
Cambridge,  Yale,  Harvard  and  Princeton,  grew  up  out  of  the 
divinity  school  which  follows  the  monastery  idea.  The  ideal 
was  the  ideal  of  a  priest,  and  to  a  great  degree  this  conception 
abides  J^  The  intent  is  not  to  fit  the  pupil  for  the  struggle  of 
life,  but  to  relieve  him  from  it. 

And  any  education  that  separates  man  from  man  is  not 
wholly  good.  College  education  has  ruined  a  vast  number  of 
men.  All  the  great  and  fashionable  universities  are  given  over 
to  cigarettes,  booze,  bromide  and  the  devious  ways  of 
dalliance  «^  ,^ 

^  Bodily  exercise  is  optional — there  is  athletics,  but  physical 
culture  for  those  who  need  it  most  is  carefully  cut. 
These  universities  are  filled,  for  the  most  part,  with  remit- 
tance men  ^  If  a  boy  is  a  burden  at  home,  and  has  no  incli- 
nation to  help  his  father  in  his  business,  the  lad  is  sent  to  Har- 
vard. This  in  the  hope  that  a  coUege^degree  will  make  amends 
56 


for  lack  of  phosphorus.  As  people  under  suspicion  have  been   ANDREW 
known  to  flash  a  marriage  certificate,  so  does  a  card  of  mem-   CARNEGIE 
bership  in  a  University  Club  supply  the  social  benzoate  of 
soda.  The  college  degree  today  is  a  social  passport — it  is  no 
proof  of  ability. 

All  of  which  does  not  apply  to  boys  who  work  their  way 
through  college — this  is  quite  another  matter. 
The  intent  of  Tuskeegee  Institute  is  to  show  the  youth  how  to 
earn  a  living — to  mind  his  own  business,  to  be  useful  to  him- 
self and  others.  Its  aim  is  to  evolve  character,  not  merely 
culcha.  Hence  the  ban  on  booze,  the  taboo  on  tobacco,  and  the 
lessons  in  such  homely  themes  as  personal  cleanliness,  moral 
integrity,  manly  abstinence,  industry,  and  a  strict  looking 
after  of  one  person — and  that  the  individual  right  under  your 
own  hat.  Mr.  Carnegie  would  say  that  to  write  poetry,  play 
the  piano,  orate  in  orotund  and  gesticulate  in  curves,  were 
folly,  if  the  party  cultivated  the  poker-face  and  did  n't  pay 
his  debts. 

Artistic  genius  is  no  excuse  today  for  not  walking  the  moral 
chalk-line — all  that  lies  behind. 

And  yet  Mr.  Carnegie  is  no  Puritan — he  believes  in  all  nat- 
ural, normal  sports,  and  he  loves  the  laughter  that  has  in  it 
no  bitterness. 

He  thinks  an  ounce  of  competence  is  worth  a  pound  of 
cleverness.  The  college  that  makes  its  pupils  immune  from 
physical  work  is  fitting  them  for  the  toboggan. 
It  may  not  destroy  all,  but  it  will  maim  many. 
Have  we  not  seen  men  with  titles  in  front  of  their  names  and 
degrees  behind,  who  dived  deep  and  soared  high,  and  yet 
were  in  debt  to  the  tailor?  The  world  is  full  of  educated  fools, 
and  Mr.  Carnegie  has  done  more  than  any  other  living  man 
to  lessen  the  number  and  curtail  their  production.  He  has  not 
only  preached  the  dignity  of  labor,  but  lived  the  lesson  in  a 
hundred  forms. 

57 


ANDREW  The  average  millionaire  has  not  had  college  advantages,  and 
CARNEGIE  so  he  is  apt  to  indulge  in  the  foolish  fancy  that  he  has  lost 
something  out  of  his  life. 

Hence,  he  sends  his  boys  to  college,  especially,  as  stated,  if 
they  do  not  show  much  aptitude  for  work.  The  final  choice  of 
college  is  left  to  the  mother  and  boy,  with  the  sisters  as  ad- 
visers. The  advantage  of  social  station  here  comes  in,  and  it  *s 
Cecil  for  the  pedagogic  polish  and  a  patent-leather  Princeton 
shine.  Mr.  Carnegie  knows  that  this  brand  of  youth  may 
possibly  make  a  good  head  clerk,  but  very,  very  rarely  does 
he  become  a  Superintendent  or  General  Manager.  The  big  boys 
who  run  the  railroads,  banks,  factories,  grain-elevators  and 
steamship  lines  are  men  who  **never  had  a  chance  in  life." 
^  College  at  its  best  is  an  artificial  and  unnatural  scheme  of 
education.  It  may  be  a  good  make-believe,  but  it  is  not  life. 
fl  It  is  like  that  method  in  the  Elmira  Reform  School  where 
they  eternally  build  brick  buildings  and  eternally  tear  them 
down.  This  is  better  than  idleness,  but  the  shroud  that  Penel- 
ope wove  during  the  day  and  raveled  at  night  was  n*t  much 
of  a  shroud.  Every  inmate  at  Elmira  realizes  that  he  is  not 
helping  to  erect  a  building — he  is  only  pretending  to  do  so. 
^  That  is  the  difference  between  Elmira  and  Tuskeegee.  At 
Tuskeegee  the  building  is  planned  for  use  and  built  to  stay, 
and  it  is  built  in  freedom  and  joy. 

The  nearer  our  schools  approach  life,  the  more  useful  they 
are.  There  is  great  danger  that  a  make-believe  education  will 
evolve  a  make-believe  man.  The  college  of  the  future  will 
supply  the  opportunity,  but  the  man  will  get  his  education 
himself.  And  it  will  not  be  a  surface  shine.  To  earn  a  living 
is  quite  as  necessary  as  to  parse  the  Greek  verb  and  wrestle 
the  ablative. 

Some  day,  no  college  will  graduate  a  man  or  woman  who 
cannot  at  once  earn  a  living.  To  make  good  is  better  than  to 
make  an  excuse  Jt  The  college  and  life  must  be  one.  The 
58 


education  of  the  future  will  be  industrial,  and  opportunities  ANDREW 
will  be  afforded  so  the  youth  will  get  his  living  and  his  education  CARNEGIE 
at  the  same  time.  ^The  college  will  then  be  a  cross-section  of 
life,  not  a  papier-mache  imitation  of  it. 


NCE  at  a  wake  a  certain  Milesian 
by  the  name  of  Mickey  Dolan  sat 
apart  and  refused  to  join  in  the 
general  praise  of  the  deceased. 
"Come,"  said  one  of  the  guests, 
**come  now,  Mickey — be  fair  and 
acknowledge  it,  he  was  a  good 
shoveler ! " 

Mickey  shifted  his  dudheen  and 
replied  with  acerbity,  **Well,  as 
for  that,  I  '11  be  admittin*  he  was 
a  good  shoveler,  but  he  was  n't 
what  ye  could  call  a  fancy  shoveler. " 
I  am  a  writing  man,  and  it  seems  to  me  absurd  that  a  multi- 
millionaire can  write  at  all. 

As  for  Andrew  Carnegie's  literary  gifts,  he  is  surely  a  good 
writer,  but  he  is  not  what  you  could  call  a  fancy  writer.  He 
says  things  in  good  clear  straight  English.  We  know  what  he 
means,  and  his  thought  is  always  worth  recording,  but  the 
forensic  frillsj  say  of  Edgar  Saltus,  Alfred  Henry  Lewis  and 
William  Marion  Reedy,  are  not  here.  His  books  are  no  jig-saw 
puzzle.  The  man  has  ideas  and  he  states  them.  He  is  never 
guilty  of  writing  Johnsonese,  nor  does  he  trespass  on  the 
preserve  of  Eleanor  Glyn.  His  pages  are  flavored  by  subtle 
dashes  of  wit,  as  when  he  speaks  of  a  Wall  Street  broker, 
**  whose  relatives  with  unconscious  humor  spoke  of  his  being 

59 


ANDREW  a  business  man."  q**The Empire  of  Business,"  by  Andrew 
CARNEGIE  Carnegie,  is  a  book  that  every  business  man  should  read. 
It  is  a  book  that  should  be  in  every  High  School  Library. 
^  Mr.  Carnegie  believes  in  the  divinity  of  business — that  it  is 
just  as  honorable  and  beautiful  to  serve  the  material  wants  of 
humanity  as  to  write  poetry  or  play  the  piano.  He  would 
make  of  business  an  art,  and  in  this  respect  he  is  voicing  the 
best  thought  of  the  day. 
I  append  a  few  specimen  Carnegie  nuggets : 

^  HE  young  man  who  never  had  a  chance  is  the  same 
^^  young  man  who  has  been  canvassed  over  and  over  again 
by  his  superiors,  and  found  destitute  of  necessary  qualifica- 
tions, or  is  deemed  unworthy  of  closer  relations  with  the 
firm,  owing  to  some  objectional  act,  habit,  or  association,  of 
which  he  thought  his  employers  ignorant. 


Perhaps  some  one  in  the  vast  audience  which  I  have  imagined 
I  am  about  to  hold  spellbound  cries  out:  '*Who  are  you — a 
gold-bug,  a  millionaire,  an  iron-baron,  a  beneficiary  of  the 
McKinley  Bill?  "  Before  beginning  my  address,  let  me  there- 
fore reply  to  that  imaginary  gentleman  that  I  have  not  seen  a 
thousand  dollars  in  gold  for  many  a  year. 


The  young  women  who  overfeed  the  dogs,  and  the  fathers 
who  ruin  their  sons,  have  themselves  to  thank. 


Let  no  man  know  more  of  your  specialty  than  you  do  your- 
self jft  ^^ 


He  prayeth  best  who  worketh  best. 


Accumulated  into  a  great  fund  and  expended  as  Peter 
Cooper  expended  it  for  the  Cooper  Institute,  wealth  es- 
tablishes something  that  will  last  for  generations. 


You  can  not  push  any  one  up  a  ladder  unless  he  is  willing  to 
climb  a  little  himself. 
60 


The  epitaph  which  every  rich  man  should  wish  himself  justly  ANDREW 
entitled  to  is  that  seen  upon  the  monument  of  Pitt :  CARNEGIE 

He  lived  without  ostentation, 

And  he  died  poor. 


By  administering  surplus  wealth  during  life,  great  wealth 
may  become  a  blessing  to  the  community,  and  the  occupation 
of  the  business  man  accumulating  wealth  may  be  elevated  so 
as  to  rank  with  any  profession. 


From  the  anxieties  of  poverty  as  from  the  responsibilities  of 
wealth,  good  Lord,  deliver  us. 


First  conquer  your  home  market  and  the  foreign  market  will 
probably  be  added  to  you. 


Never  indorse  until  you  have  cash  means  not  required  for 
your  own  debts,  and  never  indorse  bevond  those  means. 


We  do  not  so  much  need  capital  as  we  need  the  man  who  has 
proved  that  he  has  the  business  habits  which  create  capital ; 
and  to  create  it  in  the  best  of  all  possible  ways,  as  far  as  self- 
discipline  is  concerned,  is  by  adjusting  his  habits  as  to  his 
means  Jt-  J> 


No  young  man  ever  lived  who  had  not  a  chance,  and  a 
splendid  chance,  too,  if  he  ever  was  employed  at  all. 


Abolish  poverty,  and  what  would  become  of  the  race?  Prog- 
ress, development,  would  cease.  The  supply  of  the  good  and 
the  great  would  cease,  and  human  society  retrograde  into 
barbarism  Jt>  jt 


6i 


ANDREW  iRS^ISxPlFSq^lSSPil^-  CARNEGIE'S  success,  like  that 
CARNEGIE    s^i'  sK4^  iKi  ^^^    ^^  every  master  business  man,  has 

turned  on  his  selection  of  men.  He 
has  always  been  on  the  lookout  for 
young  men  who  could  carry  the 
Message  Jt   J^ 

^  His  success  proves  his  ability  to 
judge  humanity. 

Whenever  he  was  sure  he  had  the 
genuine  article  he  would  give  the 
young  man  an  interest  in  the  busi- 
ness, often  a  percentage  on  sales 
or  output,  q  This  was  the  plan  of  Marshall  Field. 
By  this  method  he  transformed  a  good  man  into  a  master, 
and  bound  the  man  to  him  in  a  way  that  no  outside  influence 
could  lend  a  lure.  The  only  disadvantage  in  this,  Mr.  Carnegie 
says,  is  that  when  the  young  man  becomes  a  millionaire  you 
may  have  him  for  a  competitor,  but  even  with  this  risk,  it  is 
much  wiser  than  to  try  to  carry  all  the  burden  yourself. 
fl  A  multi-millionaire  should  raise  a  goodly  brood  of  million- 
aires, and  of  necessity  does. 

Wise  is  the  man  who  sees  to  it  that  he  has  an  understudy. 
Once  upon  a  time,  along  in  the  eighties,  Mr.  Carnegie  got 
somewhat  overworked  and  took  a  trip  to  Europe.  Just  before 
going,  he  went  around  and  bade  good-by  to  each  of  the  Big 
Boys  who  ran  the  mills.  One  of  these  was  Captain  William 
Jones,  more  familiarly  known  to  fame  as  plain  Bill  Jones. 
q  **Bill,**  said  Mr.  Carnegie,  **I  'm  a  bit  weary  and  I  feel  I 
must  get  away,  and  the  only  place  for  me  to  go  is  Europe.  I 
have  to  place  an  ocean  between  me  and  this  mighty  hum  of 
industry  before  I  can  get  rest.  And  do  you  know.  Bill,  no 
matter  how  oppressed  I  am,  just  as  soon  as  I  round  Sandy 
Hook  and  get  out  of  sight  of  land,  I  get  perfect  relief." 
And  Bill  answered:  "And,  0  Lord,  just  think  of  the  relief 
62 


we  all  get,"  and  everybody  roared,  Andy  loudest   of   all.  ANDREW 

qAnd  the  last  thing  that  Andy  did  before  sailing  was  to  CARNEGIE 

raise  Bill's  salary  just  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

Mr.  Carnegie  has  always  liked  men  who  are  not  afraid  of 

him;  and  when  one  of  his  workers  could  convince  him  that 

he — the  worker — knew  more  about  some  particular  phase  of 

the  business  than  Mr.  Carnegie,  that  man  was  richly  rewarded. 

Mr.  Carnegie  has  ever  been  on  friendly  terms  with  his  men. 

^  And  had  he  been  in  America  when  the  Homestead  labor 

trouble  arose,  there  would  have  been  no  strike.  He  is  firm 

when  he  should  be,  but  he  is  always  friendly.  He  is  wise  enough 

and  big  enough  to  give  in  a  point.  Like  Lincoln,  he  likes  to  let 

people  have  their  own  way.  He  manages  them,  if  need  be,  by 

indirection,  rather  than  by  formal  edict,  order  and  injunction. 


>\RBARIC    people  prize  gold  and 
make  much  use  of  silver. 
But  the  consumption  of  iron  is  the 
badge  of  civilization. 
Iron  rails,  iron  steam-boats,  iron 
buildings!    And    who    was    there 
thirty  years  ago  who  foresaw  the 
modern    sky-scraper,    any    more 
than  a  hundred  years  ago  men 
foretold  the  iron  steamship  I 
The  business  of  Andrew  Carnegie 
has  been  to  couple  the  iron  mines 
of  Lake  Superior  with  the  coal-fields  of  Pennsylvania. 
And  to  load  the  ore  in  Duluth  and  transport  it  to  Pittsburgh, 
a  thousand  miles  away,  and  transform  it  into  steel  rails  was  a 
matter  of  ten  days.  When  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company  was 

63 


ANDREW  reconstructed  in  Nineteen  Hundred,  it  was  with  no  intention 
CARNEGIE  of  selling  out.  It  was  the  biggest  and  best-organized  business 
concern  in  America,  with  possibly  one  exception. 
Its  capital  was  one  hundred  million  dollars.  It  owned  the 
Homestead,  the  Edgar  Thompson  and  the  Duquesne  Mills. 
^  Besides  this,  it  owned  seven  other  smaller  mills. 
It  owned  thousands  of  acres  of  ore-land  in  the  Lake 
Superior  country.  It  owned  a  line  of  iron  steamships  that 
carried  the  ore  to  the  Pittsburgh  railroad  connections.  It 
owned  the  railroads  that  brought  the  ore  from  the  mines 
to  the  docks,  and  it  owned  the  docks.  It  owned  vast  coal- 
mines in  Pennsylvania,  and  it  owned  a  controlling  interest 
in  the  Connellville  coke-ovens,  from  whence  five  miles  of 
freight-cars,  in  fair  times,  were  daily  sent  to  the  mills,  loaded 
with  coke. 

These  properties  were  practically  owned  by  Mr.  Carnegie 
personally,  and  his  was  the  controlling  hand.  He  had  a  daily 
report  from  every  mill,  which  in  a  few  lines  told  just  what 
the  concern  was  doing.  There  was  also  a  daily  report  from 
each  branch  ofiice,  and  a  report  from  the  head  cashier  where 
one  line  of  figures  presaged  the  financial  weather. 
When  **the  billion-dollar  trust"— the  United  States  Steel 
Corporation — was  formed,  Mr.  Carnegie  sold  his  interests  in 
the  Carnegie  plants  to  the  new  concern  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty  million  dollars,  and  took  his  pay  in  five-per-cent  bonds. 
^  It  was  the  biggest  and  cleanest  clean-up  ever  consummated 
in  the  business  world. 

As  a  financial  get-away  it  has  no  rival  in  history. 
There  were  many  wise  ones  who  said,  "Oh,  he  will  foreclose 
and  have  the  works  back  in  a  few  years. "  But  not  so — the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation  has  made  money  and  is 
making  money  because  it  is  being  managed  by  men  who,  for 
the  most  part,  were  trained  by  Carnegie  in  the  financial  way 
they  should  go. 

64 


As  far  as  money  is  concerned,  Mr.  Carnegie  could  have  made  ANDREW 

much  more  by  staying  in  business  than  by  selling  out,  but  CARNEGIE 

Andrew  Carnegie  quit  one  job  to  take  up  a  harder  one.   ^ 

"To  die  a  millionaire  will  yet  be  a  disgrace, "  he  said.  To  give 

away  money  is  easy,  but  to  give  it  away  wisely,  so  it  will 

benefit  the  world  for  generations  to  come — that  is  a  most 

difficult  and  exacting  task. 

Money  not  earned  is  a  curse  to  an  individual — a  mental,  moral 

and  physical  curse,  and  yet  the  vast  majority  of  people  want 

something  for  nothing.  To  give  away  money  wisely  is  like 

feeding  milk  to  a  dozen  hungry  calves  from  one  pail. 

We  remember  the  girl  who,  when  advised  by  her  mother  as 

to  the  folly  of  getting  married,  airily  replied :  "Well,  I  want  to 

learn  the  folly  of  it  for  myself  I "  And  so  it  is  with  having  money 

not  earned — we  want  to  know  the  folly  of  it  for  ourselves. 

Mr.  Carnegie  seems  the  only  man  in  the  world  who  is  blazing 

a  trail  through  the  forest  that  leads  to  the  Science  of  Giving. 

^  The  quarter  of  a  thousand  million  in  Steel  Bonds  did  not 

constitute  Mr.  Carnegie's  whole  wealth.  He  had  several  little 

investments  outside  of  that.  In  fact,  that  clever  saying,  "Put 

all  your  eggs  in  one  basket, "  is  exoteric,  not  esoteric. 

What  Mr.  Carnegie  really  meant  was,  if  you  are  only  big 

enough  to  watch  one  basket,  to  have  two  were  folly.  Mr. 

Carnegie  himself  has  always  had  his  eggs  in  a  dozen  or  so 

baskets,  but  he  never  has  had  any  more  baskets  than  he 

could  watch.  His  baskets  were  usually  coupled  together  like 

the  "grasshopper,"  which  pumps  several  oil-wells  with  one 

engine.  Wealth  is  good  for  those  who  can  use  it;  power  the 

same ;  but  when  you  cease  to  manage  a  thing  and  the  thing 

begins  to  manage  you,  it  may  eat  you  up. 

In  East  Aurora  there  used  to  be  a  good  friend  of  mine  who 

had  a  peanut-stand  at  the  station. 

The  business  flourished  and  some  one  advised  my  friend  that 

be  should  put  in  popcorn  as  a  side-line. 

6s 


ANDREW  He  did  so,  and  got  nervous  prostration.  You  see,  he  was  a  pea- 
CARNEGIE  nut  man,  and  when  he  got  outside  of  his  specialty  he  was  lost. 
One  realizes  the  herculean  task  of  dying  poor  which  confronts 
Mr.  Carnegie,  when  you  think  that  he  is  worth,  say,  five 
hundred  million  dollars.  This  is  invested  so  that  it  brings  an 
income  of  five  per  cent,  or  twenty-five  million  dollars  a 
year  ^  Jt> 

So  far  Mr.  Carnegie  has  been  barely  able  to  give  away  his 
income,  to  say  nothing  of  the  principal.  His  total  benefac- 
tions up  to  the  present  time  amount  to  about  two  hundred 
millions.  He  has  nearly  worked  the  territory  with  libraries. 
You  can't  give  two  libraries  to  a  town,  excepting  in  the  big 
cities — people  protest  and  will  not  have  them. 
There  is  a  limit  to  pipe-organs. 

Heroes  are  so  plentiful  that  it  is  more  or  less  absurd  to  dis- 
tinguish them  with  medals.  Dunfermline  is  almost  done  for 
by  a  liberality  that  would  damn  any  American  town. 
To  give  faster  than  people  grow  is  to  run  the  grave  risk  of 
arresting  development.  A  benefaction  must  bestow  a  benefit. 
^  Give  to  most  people  and  they  will  quit  work  and  get  a  job 
with  George  Arliss,  for  the  Devil  still  finds  mischief  for  idle 
hands  to  do. 

To  relieve  the  average  man  from  work  would  simply  increase 
the  trade  in  cigarettes,  cocaine,  bromide  and  strong  drink, 
and  supply  candidates  for  Sing  Sing.  To  make  a  vast  fortune 
and  then  lose  the  tail-board  out  of  your  hearse  and  dump  your 
wealth  on  a  lazy  world  merely  causes  the  growler  to  circulate 
rapidly.  And  so  we  sympathize  with  Andrew  Carnegie  in  his 
endeavor  to  live  up  to  his  dictum  to  die  poor,  and  yet  not 
pauperize  the  world  by  his  wealth.  But  let  us  not  despond.  The 
man  is  only  seventy-two.  His  eyes  are  bright ;  his  teeth  are 
firm ;  his  form  is  erect ;  his  limbs  are  agile ;  and  his  brain  is  at 
its  best.  Most  hopeful  sign  of  all,  he  can  laugh.  He  can  even 
laugh  at  himself.  This  means  sanity  and  length  of  days. 
66 


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m^si^S!:E 


EALTH 
is  a  Re- 

bility,  and  is  Only 
Good  for  Those 
Who  Know  How 


-EMERSON 


HE  heroes 
ofbarbaric 
times  were 
the  men 
who  killed  and  des- 
troyed; the  heroes 
of  our  day  are  those 
who  succor  and 


save.— y4  n dre w  Carnegie 


Vol.  25 


SEPTEMBER,   MCMIX 


No.  3 


□DZKQ 


Hg  HOMF^  Off 


IME^^  MEfl 


BY  ELBERT 


L/BBFIRN 


George  Peabody 


EJQEZDTEIZH 


uonK-Mv-rm 


SlJZN^HKH-Tg-nnSgSg 


H-Hbl-HiyUO|^SlgS[g 


izirra 


IBM  b  y/  ■  YOT^  §g  ig 


EYEHE 


D 


IFFICULTY, 

trial,    hard- 
ship, obstacle, 


are  all  necessary  factors 
I      in   the  evolution  of  a 
great  soul  ■V' ■¥-■¥'  ■V>  •¥> 


jjost-offlce  in  t^.i.^i  ;kui-ora,  New  York,  for  transmfasion  as-seoojid-class  matter. 
Copyright,  1909,  by  Elbert  Hubbard,  Editor,  and  Publisher. 


Message  to  Garcia 

was  first  printed  in  "The  Philistine'*  of  March,  1899. 
The  merit  of  the  article  was  instantly  recognized,  and 
the  edition  disappeared.  The  article  was  then  reprinted 
by  George  H.  Daniels,  of  the  New  York  Central  Lines, 
and  over  three  million  copies  were  distributed  S^  It  was 
also  reprinted  by  the  Westinghouse  Company  in  England. 
In  France  the  Bon  Marche  of  Paris  distributed  a  million 
copies.  Prince  Hilakoff,  Director  of  Railways  in  Russia, 
translated  the  essay  into  Russian  and  presented  a  copy 
to  every  officer  in  the  Russian  Army  ^^  The  Mikado  of 
Japan,  not  to  be  outdone,  had  the  "Message"  printed  in 
Japanese,  and  a  copy  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  every 
Japanese  soldier.  C[  In  all,  the  "Message"  has  been 
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w^ider  circulation  than  any  other  article  ever  written  by 
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Few  Vofemcs  of  the  "Message" 

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HEALTH  AND  WEALTH 

Woman*  s  Work 
Batde  of  Waterloo      - 
White  Hyacinths 
The  Rubaiyat 
A  William  Morris  Book 
Crimes  Against  Criminals 
The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol 
The  Man  of  Sorrows 
Justinian  and  Theodora    - 


Elbert  Hubbard 

Alice  Hubbard 

Victor  Hugo 

Elbert  Hubbard 

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-     Hubbard  and  Thomson 

Robert  G.  Ingersoll 

Oscar  Wilde 

Elbert  Hubbard 

Elbert  and  J  lice  Hubbard 


BOUND  VOL.  (Selected)  LITTLE  JOURNEYS 


Elbert  Hubbard 


THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  New  York 


[\ovun\-yy\ 


TO  THE  HOhflF^T^FI 


irtE^^Tfim 


George   Peabody 

"  •"""•"KOMF  •  INTO  •  n"— 


BOOK-RY-TFIFI 


3E  SZEEIEZS3233ia  Sg  ag 


Sg  SE  HESEZZnKH  ag  Sg 


SgSH^^^^fflEH 


THE  great  deeds  for  human  betterment  must  be  done  by  individ- 
uals— they  can  never  be  done  by  the  many. 

^-GEORGE  PEABODY 


GEORGE     PEABODY 


LITTLE   JOURNEYS 


EORGE  PEABODY  was  a  noted 
American  merchant  and  banker. 
He  was  bom  in  the  village  of 
Danvers,  Massachusetts,  in 
Seventeen  Hundred  Ninety-five. 
He  died  in  London  in  Eighteen 
Hundred  Sixty-nine. 
In  childhood,  poverty  was  his 
portion.  But  he  succeeded,  for 
he  had  the  persistent  corpuscle, 
and  he  had  charm  of  manner — 
two  things  which  will  make  any 
man  a  winner  in  the  game  of  life. 

He  gave  away  during  his  lifetime  eight  million  dollars.  When 
he  died  he  had  four  million  dollars  left,  which  was  distributed 
by  his  will,  largely  for  the  betterment  of  society. 
The  fact  that  Peabody  left  so  much  money  was  accidental.  He 
intended  to  give  this  money  away,  under  his  own  personal, 
supervision,  but  Death  came  suddenly. 
Has  the  world  made  head  the  past  forty  years? 
Listen,  Terese,  it  has  made  more  progress  during  the  past- 
forty  years  than  in  the  two  thousand  years  preceding. 
The  entire  fortune  of  George  Peabody,  including  what  he 
gave  away  during  his  life  and  what  he  left,  was  twelve 
million  dollars. 

This  is  just  the  income  of  Andrew  Carnegie  for  six  months.. 
fl  We  scarcely  realize  how  civilization  smells  of  paint  until 
we  remember  that  George  Peabody  was  the  world's  first: 

67 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

philanthropist.  flNo  doubt  there  were  many  people  with 
philanthropic  impulses  before  him,  but  they  were  poor.  It  *s 
easy  to  sympathize  with  humanity  when  you  have  nothing 
to  give  but  advice. 

The  miracle  comes  in  when  great  wealth  and  great  love 
of  mankind  are  combined  in  one  individual. 
In  the  Occident,  giving  to  the  poor  is  lending  to  the  devil. 
The  plan  has  always  been  more  or  less  of  a  pastime  to  the 
rich,  but  the  giving  has  usually  been  limited  to  sixpences, 
with  absolute  harm  to  the  poor.  All  any  one  should  ask  is 
opportunity.  Sailors  just  ashore,  with  three  months*  pay, 
are  the  most  charitable  men  on  earth — we  might  also  say 
they  are  the  most  loving  and  the  least  lovable. 
The  beggars  wax  glad  when  Jack  lumbers  their  way  with 
a  gaily  painted  galley  in  tow ;  but  alas,  tomorrow  Jack  belongs 
to  the  poor. 

Charity  in  the  past  has  been  prompted  by  weakness  and 
whim — the  penance  of  rogues — and  often  we  give  to  get 
rid  of  the  troublesome  applicant. 

Beggary  and  virtue  were  imagined  to  have  something  akin. 
Rags  and  honesty  were  sort  of  synonymous,  and  we  spoke 
of  honest  hearts  that  beat  *neath  ragged  jackets  J(>  That 
was  poetry,  but  was  it  art?  Or  was  it  just  a  little  harmless 
exercise  of  the  lachrymal  glands?  Riches  and  roguery  were 
spoken  of  in  one  breath,  unless  the  gentleman  was  present 
and  then  we  curtsied,  cringed  or  crawled,  and  laughed 
loudly  at  all  his  jokes. 

These  things  doubtless  dated  back  to  a  time  when  the  only 
68 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

mode  of  accumulating  wealth  was  through  oppression  ^ 
Pirates  were  rich — honest  men  were  poor  J>  To  be  poor 
proved  that  you  were  not  a  robber.  The  heroes  in  war  took 
cities,  and  all  they  could  carry  away  was  theirs  .^  The 
monasteries  were  passing  rich  in  the  Middle  Ages,  because 
their  valves  only  opened  one  way — they  received  much 
and  paid  out  nothing.  To  save  the  souls  of  men  was  a  just 
equivalent  for  accepting  their  services  for  the  little  time 
they  were  on  earth.  QThe  monasteries  owned  the  land,  and 
the  rentals  paid  by  the  fiefs  and  villeins  went  into  the  church 
treasuries.  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  an  abbot  say  this:  "I  took 
the  vow  of  poverty,  and  find  myself  with  an  income  of 
twenty  thousand  pounds  a  year." 

But  wealth  did  not  burden  the  monks  forever.  Wealth 
changes  hands — that  is  one  of  its  peculiarities. 
War  came,  red  of  tooth  and  claw,  and  the  soldiery,  which 
heretofore  had  been  used  only  to  protect  the  religious 
orders,  now  flushed  with  victory,  turned  against  them  Jt> 
Charges  were  trumped  up  against  churchmen  high  in 
authority,  and  without  doubt  the  charges  were  often  true, 
because  a  robe  and  a  rope  girdle,  or  the  reversal  of  haber- 
dashery, do  not  change  the  nature  of  a  man.  Down  under 
the  robe,  you'll  sometimes  find  a  man  frail  of  soul — grasp- 
ing, sensual,  selfish. 

The  monasteries  were  looked  upon  as  contraband  of  war. 
**To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils,"  was  the  motto  of  a 
certain  man  who  was  President  of  the  United  States,  so 
persistent  was  the  war  idea  of  acquiring  wealth. 

69 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

The  property  of  the  religious  orders  was  confiscated,  and 
as  a  reward  for  heroic  services,  great  soldiers  were  given 
great  tracts  of  land,  jt  The  big  estates  in  Europe  all  have 
their  origin  in  this  well-established  custom  of  dividing  the 
spoils.  The  plan  of  taking  the  property  of  each  or  all  who 
were  guilty  of  sedition,  treason  and  contumacy  was  well 
established  by  precedents  that  traced  back  to  Cain.  When 
George  Washington  appropriated  the  estate  of  Roger  Morris, 
forty  centuries  of  precedent  looked  down  upon  him. 
Also,  it  might  be  added  that  if  a  man  owned  a  particularly 
valuable  estate,  and  a  soldier  desired  this  estate,  it  was  easy 
for  this  soldier  to  massage  his  conscience  by  listening  to  and 
believing  the  report  that  the  owner  had  spoken  ill  of  the  king, 
and  given  succor  to  the  enemy. 

Then  the  soldier  felt  it  his  **duty"  to  punish  the  recreant  one 
by  taking  his  property. 

And  so  the  Age  of  the  Barons  followed  the  Age  of  the  Monas- 
teries J^  J^ 

And  now  the  Barons  have  given  way  to   the  Age  of  the 
Merchant. 

The  Monks  multiplied  the  poor  by  a  monopoly  on  education. 
Superstition,  poverty  and  incompetence  formed  the  portion 
of  the  many.  **This  world  is  but  a  desert  drear,"  was  the 
actual  fact  as  long  as  priests  and  soldiers  were  supreme. 
^The  Reign  of  the  Barons  was  merely  a  transfer  of  power 
with  no  revision  of  ideals.  The  choice  between  a  miter  and 
a  helmet  is  nil,  and  when  the  owner  converses  through  his 
head-gear,  his  logic  is  alike  vulnerable  and  valueless. 
70 


(xEORGE         PEABODY 

So  enters  the  Merchant,  whose  business  it  is  to  carry  things 

from  where  they  are  plentiful  to  where  they  are  scarce. 

And  comes  he  so  quietly  and  with  so  little  ostentation  that 

men  do  not  realize  the  change. 

And   George   Peabody,   an  American,   gives   three  million 

dollars  to  the  poor  of  London.  This  money  was  not  tossed 

out  to  purchase  peace,  and  to  encourage  idleness,  and  to 

be  spent  in  strong  drink  and  frills  and  finery,  and  the  ways 

that  lead  to  Nowhere,  but  to  provide  better  homes  for  men, 

women  and  children. 

"Lay  hold  on  eternal  life,"  said  Paul,  writing  to  Timothy. 

The  proper  translation  we  now  believe  should  be,  "Lay  hold 

on  the  age  to  come. " 

Philanthropy  now  seeks  to  lay  hold  on  the  age  to  come.  We 

are  building  for  the  future. 

The  embryo  has  eyes,  ears  and  organs  of  speech.  But  the 
embryo  does  not  see,  nor  hear,  nor  speak.  It  is  laying  hold 
on  the  age  to  come — it  is  preparing  to  live — it  is  getting 
ready  for  the  future.  ^  The  past  is  dead,  the  present  is  dying, 
and  only  that  which  is  to  come  is  alive. 
Philanthropy,  up  to  the  time  of  Peabody,  was  palliation, 
just  as  the  entire  practise  of  medicine  was  palliation  until 
the  Goths  and  Vandals,  day  before  yesterday,  razed  the 
walls  of  medical  orthodoxy,  and  with  the  help  of  Dr.  Eliot 
demolished  the  god  Terminus  and  his  temple. 
The  life  of  George  Peabody  was  not  in  what  he  gave,  but 
in  what  he  taught.  He  inspired  the  millionaires  that  are 
to  be.  He  laid  hold  on  the  age  to  come. 

71 


GEORGE 


P    E    A     B     0     D     Y 


EORGE  PEABODY  is  another  ex- 
ample of  a  boy  who  succeeded  in 
spite  of  his  parents.  The  rigors  of 
climate  and  the  unkindness  of  a 
scanty  soil  may  be  good  things. 
They  are  good,  like  competition, 
very  excellent,  provided  you  do 
not  get  more  than  your  consti- 
tution requires. 

New  England  has  her  **  white 
trash,"  as  well  as  the  South  J^ 
The  Peabodys  of  Danvers  were 
good  folks  who  never  seemed  to  get  on.  They  had  come  down 
from  the  mountains  of  New  Hampshire,  headed  for  Boston, 
but  got  stuck  near  Salem.  If  there  was  anything  going  on, 
like  mumps,  measles,  potato-bugs,  blight,  **janders"  or  the 
cows-in-the-corn,  they  got  it.  Their  roof  leaked,  the  cistern 
busted,  the  chimney  fell  in,  and  although  they  had  nothing 
worth  stealing  the  house  was  once  burglarized  while  the 
family  was  at  church  ^  The  moral  to  little  George  was 
plain:  Don't  go  to  church  and  you'll  not  get  burgled.  Life 
was  such  a  grievous  thing  that  the  parents  forgot  how  to 
laugh,  and  so  George's  joke  brought  him  a  cuff  on  the  ear 
in  the  interests  of  pure  religion  and  undefiled. 
A  couple  of  generations  back  there  was  a  strain  of  right 
valiant  heroic  Peabody  blood.  Among  the  "Green  Mountain 
Boys"  there  was  a  Peabody,  and  another  Peabody  was 
captain  of  a  packet  that  sailed  out  of  Boston  for  London. 
72 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

To  run  away  and  join  this  uncle  as  cabin-boy,  was  George's 
first  ambition. 

People  in  the  country  may  be  poor,  but  in  America  such 
never  suffer  for  food.  If  hunger  threatens,  the  children  can 
skirmish  among  the  neighbors.  The  village  of  Danvers 
was  separated  by  only  a  mile  or  so  of  swale  and  swamp 
from  Salem,  a  place  that  once  rivaled  Boston  commercially, 
and  in  matters  of  black  cats,  and  elderly  women  who  rode 
broomsticks  by  night,  set  the  world  a  pace.  Fish,  clams, 
water-lilies,  berries,  eels  and  other  such  flora  and  fauna 
were  plentiful,  and  became  objects  of  merchandizing  for 
the  Peabody  boys,  bare  of  foot  and  filled  with  high  emprise. 
^  Parents  often  bestow  upon  their  progeny  the  qualities 
which  they  themselves  do  not  possess — so  wonderful  is  this 
law  of  heredity. 

George  was  the  youngest  boy  in  the  brood,  and  was  looked 
after  by  his  **  other  mother, "  that  is  to  say,  by  an  elder  sister. 
When  this  sister  married,  the  boy  was  eleven  years  old.  To 
the  lad  this  marriage  was  more  like  a  funeral. 
He  could  read  and  write  and  count  to  a  hundred,  having  gone 
to  school  for  several  months  each  winter  since  he  was  seven. 
He  could  write  better  than  his  father  or  mother — he  wrote 
like  copperplate,  turning  his  head  on  one  side  and  chewing 
his  tongue,  keeping  pace  with  his  lips,  as  the  pen  glided 
gracefully  over  the  paper.  His  ambition  was  to  make  a  bird 
with  a  card  in  its  bill,  and  on  this  card,  written  so  small 
no  one  could  read  it,  the  proud  name,  G.  Peabody. 
This  ability  to  write  brought  him  local  fame,  and  Sylvester 

73 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

Proctor,  who  kept  a  general  store  in  the  village,  offered  to 
take  him  on  a  four  years'  apprenticeship  and  let  him  learn 
him  the  trade  of  Greengrocer  and  Dealer  in  W.  I.  Goods  Jt> 
The  papers  were  duly  made  out  and  signed,  the  boy  being 
consulted  afterward.  What  the  consideration  was,  was  not 
stated,  but  rumor  has  it  that  the  elder  Peabody  was  paid 
Twenty-five  dollars  in  "W.  I.  Goods"  and  also  wet  goods. 
^Proctor  was  a  typical  New  England  merchant  of  the  Class  B 
type.  He  was  up  at  daylight,  shaved  his  upper  lip,  and  swept 
off  the  sidewalk  in  front  of  his  store.  At  night  he  put  up  the 
shutters  with  his  own  hands.  He  remembered  every  article 
he  had  on  his  shelves  and  what  it  cost.  He  bought  nothing 
he  could  not  pay  for.  There  was  one  clerk  beside  the  boy  ^ 
After  George  came,  the  merchant  and  his  clerk  made  all 
the  memoranda  on  brown  paper,  and  the  items  were  duly 
copied  into  the  ledger  by  George  Peabody. 
I  have  been  told  that  a  man  who  writes  pure  Spencerian  can 
never  do  anything  else.  This,  however,  is  a  hasty  general- 
ization, put  forth  by  a  party  who  wrote  a  Horace  Greeley 
hand  J-  J> 

A  country  store  is  the  place  for  a  boy  to  learn  merchandizing. 
In  such  a  place  he  is  never  swallowed  up  by  a  department. 
He  learns  everything,  from  shaking  down  the  ashes  in  the 
big  stove  to  buying  and  selling  fadeless  calico.  He  becomes 
an  expert  with  a  nail-puller,  knows  strictly  fresh  eggs  from 
eggs,  and  learns  how  to  adapt  himself  to  the  whims,  caprices, 
and  notions  of  the  customers  who  know  little  and  assume 
much  j^  Jt> 
74 


GEORGE 


P     E     A    B     0     D     Y 


George  Peabody  slept  in  the  attic  over  the  store.  He  took  his 
meals  with  the  Proctor  family,  and  used  to  wipe  the  dishes 
for  Mrs.  Proctor.  He  could  tend  store,  tend  baby,  wash  a  blue 
wagon,  drive  a  ** horse  and  team"  and  say  **back-sshe!"  in 
a  way  that  would  throw  you  off  the  front  seat  when  the  horse 
stopped  if  you  did  n*t  look  out. 

That  is  to  say,  he  was  a  New  England  village  boy,  alive  and 
alert  to  every  phase  of  village  life — strong,  rapid,  willing, 
helpful.  The  villager  who  knows  too  much  gets  "fresh"  and 
falls  a  victim  of  arrested  development.  The  boy  in  a  village 
who  works,  and  then  gets  out  into  a  wider  sphere  at  that 
critical  period  when  the  wanderlust  strikes  him,  is  in  the 
line  of  evolution. 

George  Peabody  remained  at  Proctor's  store  until  nine  o'clock 
in  the  evening  of  the  day  that  marked  the  close  of  his  four 
years  of  apprenticeship. 

He  was  fifteen,  and  all  tempting  offers  from  Mr.  Proctor  to 
pay  him  wages  thereafter  in  real  money  were  turned  aside. 
^  He  had  a  new  suit  of  clothes,  five  dollars  in  his  pocket, 
and  ambition  in  his  heart.  He  was  going  to  be  a  draper,  and 
eliminate  all  **W.  I.  goods." 


75 


GEORGE 


P     E     A    B     0     D     Y 


VER  at  Newburyport,  George  had 
a  brother,  David  Peabody,  who 
ran  a  **draper*s  shop."  Tha  is  to 
say,  David  Peabody  was  a  dry- 
goods  merchant.  This  was  a  com- 
paratively new  thing  in  America, 
for  a  "store"  at  that  time,  usually 
kept  everything  that  people  wanted. 
The  exclusive  draper  idea  came 
from  London.  It  seemed  to  work 
in  Boston,  and  so  Newburyport 
tried  it  ,5^  .^ 

David  and  George  had  talked  it  over  together,  and  a  partner- 
ship was  in  mind.  In  the  meantime  George  was  only  fifteen 
years  old,  and  David  thirty.  "I  am  twice  as  old  as  you," 
once  said  David  to  George,  with  intent  to  make  the  lad  know 
his  proper  place. 

"Yes,  I  know ;  but  you  will  not  be  twice  as  old  as  I  very  long, " 
replied  George,  who  was  up  in  mathematics. 
The  brothers  did  not  mix  very  well.  They  were  tuned  to  a 
different  vibration.  One  had  speed — the  other  was  built  for 
the  plow  ^  ^ 

And  when  the  store  caught  fire  and  burned,  and  almost  all 
of  Newburyport  was  burned  up  too,  it  was  a  good  time  for 
George  to  strike  for  pastures  new. 

He  walked  down  to  Boston,  and  spent  all  his  money  for  a 
passage  on  a  coaster  that  was  about  to  sail  for  Washington,  in 
the  District  of  Columbia.  This  was  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
76 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

year  Eighteen  Hundred  Eleven.  ^Washington  was  the  capital 
of  the  country,  and  there  was  an  idea  then  that  it  was,  also, 
going  to  be  the  commercial  metropolis.  Hence  the  desire  to 
get  in  on  the  ground  floor.  Especially  was  the  South  to  look 
to  Washington  for  her  supplies. 

George  Peabody,  aged  sixteen,  looked  the  ground  over,  and 
thought  he  saw  opportunity  nodding  in  his  direction. 
He  sat  down  and  wrote  to  a  wholesale  dry-goods  dealer  by 
the  name  of  Todd  in  Newburyport,  ordering  draperies  to 
the  amount  of  two  thousand  dollars. 

Blessed  is  that  man  who  knows  what  he  wants,  and  asks 
for  it  j^  »^ 

Todd  remembered  the  boy  who  had  given  him  orders  in 
Proctor's,  and  at  once  filled  the  order. 
In  three  months  Todd  got  his  money  and  an  order  for  double 
the  amount. 

In  those  days  the  plan  of  calling  on  the  well-to-do  planters,, 
and  showing  them  the  wares  of  Autolycus  was  in  vogue  ^ 
English  dress-goods  were  a  lure  to  the  ladies.  George  Peabody 
made  a  pack  as  big  as  he  could  carry,  tramped,  smiled  and! 
sold  the  stuff.  When  he  had  emptied  his  pack,  he  came  back 
to  his  room  where  his  stock  was  stored  and  loaded  up  again.. 
If  there  were  remnants  he  sold  them  out  to  some  crossroads 
store  J^  jt 

The  fact  that  the  Jews  know  a  few  things  in  a  worldly  way, 
I  trust  will  not  be  denied.  George  Peabody,  the  Yankee, 
adopted  the  methods  of  the  Chosen  People  jt  And  at  that 
early  date,  it  comes  to  us  as  a  bit  of  a  miracle,  that  George 

77 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

Peabody  said,  "You  can*t  afford  to  sell  anybody  anything 
which  he  does  not  need,  nor  can  you  afford  to  sell  it  at  a 
price  beyond  what  it  is  worth."  Also  this,  "When  I  sell  a 
woman  draperies,  I  try  to  leave  the  transaction  so  I  can  go 
back  next  week  and  sell  her  more. " 

Also  this,  "Credit  is  the  sympathetic  nerve  of  commerce. 
There  are  men  who  do  not  keep  faith  with  those  from  whom 
they  buy,  and  such  last  only  a  little  while.  Others  do  not  keep 
faith  with  those  to  whom  they  sell,  and  such  do  not  last  long. 
To  build  on  the  rock  one  must  keep  his  credit  absolutely 
unsullied,  and  he  must  make  a  friend  of  each  and  all  to 
whom  he  sells." 

The  Judaic  mental  processes  have  been  sharpened  by 
migration.  To  carry  a  pack  and  peddle  is  better  than  to 
work  for  a  Ph.  D.,  save  for  the  social  usufruct  and  the  eclat 
of  the  unthinking. 

We  learn  by  indirection  and  not  when  we  say,  "Go  to!  Now 
watch  us  take  a  college  course  and  enlarge  our  phrenological 
organs. " 

Our  knobs  come  from  knocks,  and  not  from  the  gentle 
massage  of  hired  tutors. 

Selling  subscription-books,  maps,  sewing-machines  or  Mason 
&  Hamlin  organs,  has  given  thousands  of  strong  men  their 
initial  impulse  toward  success.  When  you  go  from  house  to 
house  to  sell  things  you  catch  the  household  in  their  old 
clothes  and  the  dog  loose.  To  get  your  foot  in  the  front  door 
and  thus  avoid  the  slam,  sweetening  acerbity  by  asking  the 
impatient   housewife   this   question,    "Is   your   mother   at 

78 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

home?"  and  then  making  a  sale,  is  an  achievement  Jb 
**The  greatest  study  of  mankind  is  man,"  said  Pope,  and 
for  once  he  was  right,  although  he  might  have  said  woman. 
^  From  fifteen  to  nineteen  is  the  formative  period,  when  the 
cosmic  cement  sets,  if  ever. 

During  those  years  George  Peabody  had  emerged  from  a 
clerkship  into  a  Business  Man.  QWhat  is  a  Business  Man? 
9  Listen,  Terese,  a  business  man  is  one 'whoj  gets  the  business, 
and  completes  the  transaction.  Bookkeepers,  correspondents, 
system  men,  janitors,  scrubwomen,  stenographers,  elec- 
tricians, elevator-boys,  cash-girls,  are  all  good  people  and 
necessary  and  worthy  of  sincere  respect,  but  they  are  not 
Business  Men,  because  they  are  on  the  side|of  expense  and 
not  income. 

When  H.  H.  Rogers  coupled  the  coal-mines  of  West  Virginia 
with  tide-water,  he  proved  himself  a  Business  Man. 
When  James  J.  Hill  created  an  Empire  in  the  Northwest, 
he  proved  his  right  to  the  title. 
The  Business  Man  is  a  salesman. 

And  no  matter  how  great  your  invention,  how  sweet  your 
song,  how  sublime  your  picture,  how  perfect  your  card- 
system,  until  you  are  able  to  convince  the  world  that  it  needs 
the  thing,  and  you  get  the  money  for  it,  you  are  not  a 
Business  Man. 

The  Business  Man  is  one  who  supplies  something  great 
and  good  to  the  world,  and  collects  from  the  world  for  the 
goods.  Taffy,  guff  and  oxaline  are  all  good  in  their  way, 
but  they  have  the  disadvantage  of  not  being  legal  tender. 

79 


GEORGE 


P    E    A    B     0    D    Y 


N  migrating  from  New  England 
to  the  District  of  Columbia,  George 
Peabody  had  moved  into  a  com- 
paratively foreign  country,  and 
in  the  process  had  sloughed  most 
of  his  provincialism.  It  is  beautiful 
to  be  a  New  Englander,  but  to  be 
nothing  else  is  terrible. 
George  had  proved  for  himself  the 
most  valuable  lesson  in  Self- 
Reliance — that  he  could  make 
his  way  alone.  He  had  kept  his 
credit  and  strengthened  it. 

He  had  served  as  a  volunteer  soldier  in  the  War  of  Eighteen 
Hundred  Twelve,  and  done  patrol  duty  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac  Jt>  ^ 

And  when  the  war  was  over,  no  one  was  quite  so  glad  as  he. 
fl  Serving  in  the  volunteer  ranks  with  him  was  one  Elisha 
Riggs,  several  years  his  senior,  and  also  a  draper.  They  had 
met  before,  but  as  competitors,  and  on  a  cold  business  basis. 
Now  they  were  comrades  in  arms,  and  friends. 
Riggs  is  today  chiefly  remembered  to  fame  because  he  built 
what  in  its  day  was  the  most  palatial  hotel  in  Washington, 
just  as  John  Jacob  Astor  was  scarcely  known  outside  of  his 
bailiwick  until  he  built  that  grand  hostelry,  the  Astor  House. 
Q  Riggs  had  carried  a  pack  among  the  Virginia  plantations, 
but  now  he  had  established  a  wholesale  dry-goods  house  in 
Georgetown,  and  sold  only  to  storekeepers.  He  had  felt  the 


80 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

competitive  force  of  Peabody*s  pack,  and  would  make  friends 
with  it  ,>t  ^ 

He  proposed  a  partnership. 

Peabody  explained  that  his  years  were  but  nineteen,  and 
therefore  he  was  not  legally  of  age. 

Riggs  argued  that  time  would  remedy  the  defect.  Riggs  was 
rich — he  had  five  thousand  dollars,  while  Peabody  had  one 
thousand  six  hundred  fifty  dollars  and  forty  cents.  I  give  the 
figures  exact,  as  the  inventory  showed. 
But  Peabody  had  one  thing  which  will  make  any  man  or 
woman  rich.  It  is  something  so  sweetly  beneficent  that  well 
can  we  call  it  the  gift  of  the  gods. 
The  asset  to  which  I  refer  is  Charm  of  Manner. 
Its  first  requisite  is  glowing  physical  health  J^  Its  second 
ingredient  is  absolute  honesty.  Its  third  is  good  will. 
Nothing  taints  the  breath  like  a  lie. 

The  old  parental  plan  of  washing  the  bad  boy's  mouth  out 
with  soft  soap  had  a  scientific  basis. 

Liars  must  possess  good  memories.  They  are  fettered  and 
gyved  by  what  they  have  said  and  done.  The  honest  man  is 
free — his  acts  require  neither  explanation  nor  apology.  He 
is  in  possession  of  all  of  his  armament. 
The  outdoor  work  of  tramping  Maryland  and  Virginia  high- 
ways had  put  the  glow  of  high  health  on  the  cheek  of  George 
Peabody.  He  was  big  in  body,  manly,  intelligent  and  could 
meet  men  on  a  basis  of  equality.  If  I  were  president  of?a 
college,  I  would  have  a  chair  devoted  to  Psychic  Mixability, 
or  Charm  of  Manner  ^  Ponderosity,  profundity,  and 

81 


GEORGE 


P    E     A    B     0     D     Y 


insipidity  may  have  their  place,  but  the  man  with  Charm 
of  Manner  keeps  his  capital  active.  His  soul  is  fluid.  I  have 
never  been  in  possession  of  enough  of  this  Social  Radium 
so  to  analyze  it,  but  I  know  it  has  the  power  of  dissolving 
opposition,  and  melting  human  hearts.  But  so  delicate  and 
illusive  is  it,  that  when  used  for  a  purely  selfish  purpose,  it 
evaporates  into  thin  air,  and  the  erstwhile  possessor  is  left 
with  only  the  mask  of  beauty  and  the  husk  of  a  personality. 
q  George  Peabody  had  Charm  of  Manner  from  his  nineteenth 
year  to  the  day  of  his  death.  Col.  Forney  crossed  the  Atlantic 
with  him  when  Peabody  was  in  his  seventy-first  year,  and 
here  is  what  Forney  says :  "  I  sat  on  one  side  of  the  cabin 
and  he  on  the  other.  He  was  reading  from  a  book,  which 
he  finally  merely  held  in  his  hands,  as  he  sat  idly  dreaming. 
I  was  melted  into  tears  by  the  sight  of  his  Jove-like  head 
framed  against  the  window.  His  face  and  features  beamed 
with  high  and  noble  intellect,  and  the  eyes  looked  forth  in 
divine  love  jt  If  ever  soul  revealed  itself  in  the  face,  it  was 
here.  He  was  the  very  King  of  Men,  and  I  did  not  wonder 
that  in  the  past  people  had  worked  the  apotheosis  of  such. " 


82 


GEORGE 


P    E    A    B     0    D     Y 


HE  firm  of  Riggs  &  Peabody 
prospered.  It  outgrew  its  quarters 
in  old  "Congress  Hall'*  in  George- 
town, and  ran  over  into  a  house 
next  door,  which  it  pre-empted. 
Moreover,  it  was  apparent  by  this 
time  that  neither  Georgetown 
nor  Washington  would  ever  be 
the  commercial  metropolis  of 
America  jt  J^ 

The  city  of  Baltimore  had  special 
harbor  advantages  that  Washing- 
ton did  not  have ;  the  ships  touched  there  according  to  natural 
law.  And  when  Riggs  &  Peabody  found  themselves  carting 
consignments  to  Baltimore  so  as  to  make  shipment  to 
Savannah  and  Charleston,  they  knew  the  die  was  cast. 
Q  They  packed  up  and  moved  to  Baltimore. 
This  was  in  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  Fifteen. 
In  order  to  do  business  you  had  better  go  to  where  business 
is  being  done.  Trade  follows  the  lines  of  least  resistance  J^ 
The  wholesale  dealer  saw  the  value  of  honesty  as  a  busi- 
ness asset,  long  before  the  retailer  made  the  same  unique 
discovery  ^  ^ 

Dr.  Algernon  S.  Crapsey  says  that  truth  is  a  brand-new 
virtue,  and  the  clergy  are  not  quite  sure  about  it  yet  .^ 
To  hold  his  trade  the  jobber  found  he  had  to  be  on  the 
dead  level:  he  had  to  consider  himself  the  attorney  for  his 
client.  Peabody  was  a  merchant  by  instinct.  He  had  good 

83 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

taste,  and  he  had  a  prophetic  instinct  as  to  what  the  people 
wanted.  Instead  of  buying  his  supplies  in  Newburyport, 
Boston  and  New  York,  he  now  established  relations  with 
London,  direct  J>  And  London  was  then  the  Commercial 
Center  of  the  world,  the  arbiter  of  fashion,  the  molder  of 
form,  the  home  of  finance — frenzied  and  otherwise  jt 
Riggs  &  Peabody  shipped  American  cotton  to  London,  and 
received  back  the  manufactured  production  in  its  manifold 
forms  J'  J> 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  Twenty-nine  Riggs  withdrew  from 
the  firm,  retaining  a  certain  financial  interest,  merely,  and 
Peabody  forged  to  the  front,  alone,  as  a  financier. 
For  many  years  Peabody  dealt  largely  with  Robert  Owen, 
and  thus  there  grew  up  a  close  and  lasting  friendship  between 
these  very  able  men.  Both  were  scouts  for  civilization.  No 
doubt  they  influenced  each  other  for  good.  We  find  them 
working  out  a  new  policy  in  business — the  policy  of  reci- 
procity, instead  of  exploitation. 

Robert  Owen  always  had  almost  unlimited  credit,  for  he 
prized  his  word  as  the  immediate  jewel  of  his  soul.  It  was 
exactly  the  same  with  Peabody. 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  Twenty-seven  Peabody  visited  Eng- 
land J'  He  was  then  thirty-two  years  old.  The  merchants 
from  whom  he  bought  discovered  a  surprising  thing  when 
they  met  Peabody — he  was  not  the  bounding,  bragging, 
bustling,  hustling,  typical  American.  He  hustled  of  course, 
but  not  visibly  nor  offensively.  He  had  the  appearance  of 
a  man  who  had  all  the  time  there  was.  He  was  moderate 
84 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

in  voice  and  gentle  in  manner,  and  we  hear  of  a  London 
banker  paying  him  the  somewhat  ambiguous  compliment 
of  saying,  "Why,  you  know,  he  is  a  perfect  gentleman — 
he  does  not  seem  like  an  American,  at  all,  you  know!" 
Peabody  had  the  rare  gift  of  never  defeating  his  ends  through 
haste  and  anxiety. 

The  second  trip  Peabody  made  to  London  was  in  Eighteen 
Hundred  Thirty-five,  and  it  was  on  a  very  delicate  and 
important  errand. 

The  State  of  Maryland  was  in  sore  financial  distress.  She 
had  issued  bonds  and  these  were  coming  due  ^  Certain 
Southern  States  had  repudiated  their  debts,  and  it  looked 
as  if  Maryland  was  going  to  default. 

Peabody  issued  an  open  letter  calling  upon  the  citizens  of 
Maryland  to  preserve  their  commercial  honor.  The  state 
bonds  were  held  mostly  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia, 
and  these  were  rival  cities.  Baltimore  was  to  be  tabu  ^ 
Stephen  Girard  had  loaned  money  to  Maryland,  and  in 
Eighteen  Hundred  Twenty-nine  had  declined  to  renew, 
and  this  some  said  had  led  to  the  stringency  which  reached 
its  height  in  Eighteen  Hundred  Thirty-five.  Then  it  was 
that  the  State  of  Maryland  empowered  George  Peabody  to 
go  to  London  and  negotiate  a  loan.  The  initiative  was  his 
own  ejt  jt, 

He  went  to  London,  and  floated  a  loan  of  eight  million 
dollars  J^  Robert  Owen  said  that  Peabody  borrowed  the 
money  "on  his  face." 

He  invited  a  dozen  London  bankers  to  a  dinner,  and  when 

8s 


GEORGE  PEABODY 

the  cloth  was  removed  he  explained  the  matter  in  such  a 
lucid  way  that  the  moneybags  loosened  their  strings  and  did 
his  bidding  without  parley.  Peabody  sailed  back  to  Baltimore 
with  the  gold  coin. 
Another  case  of  Charm  of  Manner ! 

Peabody  knew  the  loan  was  a  good  thing  to  both  borrower 
and  lender. 

And  the  man  who  knows  what  he  is  going  to  do  with  money, 
and  when  and  how  he  is  going  to  pay  it  back,  is  never  at  a 
loss  for  funds. 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  Ninety-three  Andrew  Carnegie  called 
upon  the  banks  of  Pittsburgh  for  a  million-dollar  loan.  The 
bankers  said,  **Why,  Mr.  Carnegie,  this  is  unprecedented!*^ 
The  reply  was,  "Well,  I  am  a  man  who  does  unprecedented 
things.  If  you  believe  that  I  know  what  I  am  doing,  get  this 
money  together  for  me — life  is  too  short  for  apologies — PU 
be  back  in  an  hour." 

Three  of  the  bankers  coughed,  one  sneezed,  but  they  got 
the  money  and  had  it  ready  when  Andy  called  in  an  hour. 
^  In  this  transaction  Andy  held  the  whip-hand.  The  Carnegie 
Mills  were  already  owing  the  Pittsburgh  banks  a  tidy  million 
or  so,  and  they  were  compelled  to  uphold  and  support  the 
credit  of  their  clients,  or  run  the  risk  of  having  smoke-stacks 
fall  about  their  ears. 

It  was  so,  in  degree,  with  Peabody  and  the  London  bankers. 
A  considerable  portion  of  Maryland's  old  bond  issue  had  been 
hypothecated  by  the  Philadelphia  and  New  York  bankers 
with  merchants  in  London.  It  was  now  Peabody's  cue 
86 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

to  show  London  that  she  must  protect  her  own.  His  gracious 
presence  and  his  logic  saved  the  day.  It  is  a  great  man  who 
can  flick  a  fly  on  the  off -leader's  ear,  when  occasion  demands. 
C[  As  a  commission  for  securing  the  London  loan,  the  State 
of  Maryland  gave  Peabody  a  check  for  sixty  thousand  dollars. 
He  endorsed  the  check,  "Presented  to  the  State  of  Maryland 
with  the  best  wishes  of  G.  Peabody, "  and  gave  it  back. 
Peabody*s  success  with  Threadneedle  Street  tapped  for  him 
a  reservoir  of  power.  To  bring  Great  Britain  and  America 
into  closer  financial  and  industrial  relatipnship  now  became 
his  life-work.  In  Eighteen  Hundred  Thirty-five  he  moved 
his  principal  oflice  to  London.  This  was  for  the  purpose  of 
facilitating  the  shipment  of  English  goods  to  America.  The 
English  manufacturers  were  afraid  to  sell  to  American 
merchants  ^  "Capital  is  timid,"  said  Adam  Smith,  the 
truth  of  which  many  of  us  can  attest. 
Peabody  knew  the  trade  of  America;  and  his  business  now 
was  to  make  advances  to  English  jobbers  on  shipments 
gomg  to  "the  States."  Thus  did  he  lubricate  the  wheels  of 
trade  ^  Jt> 

London  bankers  had  been  trying  to  show  English  manu- 
facturers that  trading  with  the  "American  Colonies"  was 
very  risky,  inasmuch  as  these  "Colonies"  were  "rebels,** 
and  entertained  a  hate  and  jealousy  toward  the  Mother 
Country,  which  might  manifest  itself  m  repudiation  most 
any  time. 

This  fanning  of  old  embers  was  to  keep  up  the  rate  of  dis- 
count. The  postage  on  a  letter  carried  from  England  to 

87 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

America,  or  America  to  England,  was  twenty-five  cents 
when  Peabody  first  went  to  England  J^  He  saw  the  rate 
reduced  to  ten  cents,  and  this  largely  through  his  own 
efforts  e^  ^ 

Now  we  send  a  letter  to  Great  Britain  for  two  cents,  or  as 
cheaply  as  a  letter  can  be  sent  from  New  York  City  to 
Yonkers  J^  ^ 

Through  the  influence  of  George  Peabody,  more  than  any 
other  man  of  his  time,  the  two  great  countries  grew  to 
understand  each  other. 

The  business  of  Peabody  was  to  maintain  the  credit  of 
America.  To  this  end  he  made  advances  on  shipments  to 
the  States.  Where  brokers  had  formerly  charged  ten  per 
cent,  he  took  five  J^  And  moreover,  where  he  knew  the 
American  importer,  he  advanced  to  the  full  amount  of  the 
invoice  ^  ^ 

He  turned  his  money  over  four  times  a  year,  and  thus  got 
an  interest  on  it  of  twenty  per  cent  J>  His  losses  averaged 
only  one-half  of  one  per  cent.  When  he  wanted  funds  he 
found  no  difficulty  in  borrowing  at  a  low  rate  of  interest 
on  his  own  paper. 

The  business  was  simple,  easy,  and  when  once  started 
yielded  an  income  to  Peabody  of  from  three  hundred 
thousand  to  half  a  million  dollars  a  year  ^  And  no  one 
was  more  surprised  than  George  Peabody,  who  had  once 
worked  for  Sylvester  Proctor  of  Danvers  for  four  years, 
and  at  the  end  of  that  time  been  paid  five  dollars  and  given 
a  suit  of  clothes! 
88 


GEORGE 


P    E    A    B     0    D    Y 


EABODY  lived  and  died  a  bachelor. 
^  Bachelors  are  of  two  kinds : 
There  is  the  Rara  Avis  Other 
Sort;  and  the  common  variety 
known  as  the  Bachelorum  Vul- 
garis ^  The  latter  variety  may 
always  be  recognized  by  its  procliv- 
ity to  trespass  on  the  preserve  of 
the  Pshaw  of  Persia,  thus  lay- 
ing the  candidate  open  to  a  suit  for 
the  collection  of  royalties.  Beside 
^  that,  the  Bachelorum  Vulgaris 
is  apt  to  fall  into  the  poison-ivy,  lose  his  hair,  teeth,  charm 
and  digestion,  and  die  at  the  top. 

The  other  sort  is  wedded  to  his  work — for  man  is  a  molecule 
in  the  mass  and  must  be  wedded  to  something.  To  be  wedded 
to  your  work  is  to  live  long  and  well. 

For  a  man  to  wed  a  woman  who  has  no  interest  in  his  work, 
and  thus  live  his  life  in  an  orbit  outside  of  hers,  often  causes 
the  party  to  oscillate  into  the  course  followed  by  the  Bache- 
lorum Vulgaris  and  the  Honorable  Pshaw,  known  as  the 
Devil  and  the  Deep  Sea,  and  thus  he  completes  the  circle, 
revealing  the  Law  of  Antitheses,  that  the  opposites  of  things 
are  alike. 

The  ideal  condition  is  to  be  a  bigamist,  and  wed  a  woman 
and  your  work  at  the  same  time. 

To  wed  a  woman  and  be  weaned  from  your  work  is  a 
tragedy;  to  wed  your  work  and  eliminate  the  woman  may 

89 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

spell  success.  If  compelled  to  choose,  be  loyal  to  your  work. 
As  specimens  of  those  who  get  along  fairly  well  without  either 
a  feminine  helpmeet  or  a  sinker,  I  give  you  Michelangelo, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Titian,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Herbert  Spencer 
and  George  Peabody. 

George  Peabody  was  the  true  apostolic  predecessor  of  Harry 
G.  Selfridge,  of  Chicago  and  the  round  world,  who  has 
inaugurated  American  Merchandizing  Methods  in  London, 
selling  to  the  swells  of  Picadilly  the  smart  suits  created 
by  Stein-Bloch. 

Unlike  most  men  of  wealth!  and  position,  Peabody  never 
assumed  unusual  importance  nor  demanded  favors  jft-  In 
London,  where  he  lived  for  thirty  years,  he  resided  in  simple 
apartments,  with  no  use  for  a  valet  nor  the  genus  flunkey. 
^  He  was  grateful  to  servants,  courteous  to  porters,  thankful 
to  everybody,  always  patient,  never  complaining  of  non- 
attention.  He  grew  to  be  a  favorite  among  the  bus  men  who 
came  to  know  him  and  sought  to  do  him  honor. 
The  poor  of  London  blessed  Jhim  as  he  walked  by— with 
reasons,  probably,  not  wholly' ^disinterested. 
He  used  no  tobacco,  never  touched  spirituous  liquors,  and 
at  banquets  usually  partook  of  but  a  single  dish. 
His  first  great  gift  was  three  million  dollars  to  erect  model 
tenements  for  the  poor  of  London.  The  Peabody  Apartments 
occupy  two  squares  in  Islington,  and  are  worth  a  visit  today, 
although  they  were  built  about  Eighteen  Hundred  Fifty. 
€[  The  intent  was  to  supply  a  home  for  working  people  that 
was  sanitary,  wholesome  and  complete  at  a  rental  of  exact 
90 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

cost.  Peabody  expected  that  his  example  would  be  imitated 
by  the  rich  men  of  the  nobility,  and  that  squalor  and  indi- 
gence would  soon  become  things  of  the  past  J'  Alas,  the 
Peabody  Apartments  only  accommodate  about  a  thousand 
people,  and  half  a  million  or  more  of  human  beings  live  in 
abasing  poverty  and  misery  in  London  today. 
Excepting  in  a  few  instances,  the  nobility  of  London  are 
devoid  of  the  Philanthropic  Spirit. 

In  New  York,  the  Mills  Hotels  are  yet  curiosities,  and  the 
model  tenements  exist  mostly  on  paper  jt  Trinity  Church 
with  its  millions  draws  an  income  today  from  property  of 
a  type  which  Peabody  prophesied  would  not  exist  in  the 
year  Nineteen  Hundred. 

One  thing  which  Peabody  did  not  bank  on  was  the  indiffer- 
ence of  the  poor  to  their  surroundings,  and  the  inherent  taste 
for  strong  drink.  He  thought  that  if  the  rich  would  come  to 
the  rescue,  the  poor  would  welcome  the  new  regime  and  be 
grateful  J>  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  poor  must  help 
themselves,  and  that  beautiful  as  philanthropy  is,  it  is  mostly 
for  the  philanthropist. 

The  poor  must  be  educated  to  secrete  their  surroundings, 
otherwise  if  you  supply  them  a  palace  they  will  transform 
it  into  a  slum,  tomorrow. 

**The  sole  object  of  philanthropy,"  said  Story  the  Sculptor, 
**is  to  model  a  face  like  George  Peabody's." 
When  the  news  reached  America  of  what  George  Peabody, 
the  American,  was  doing  for  London,  there  were  many  unkind 
remarks  about  his  having  forsaken  his  native  land   jt  To 

91 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

equalize  matters  Peabody  then  gave  three  million  dollars, 
just  what  he  had  given  to  London,  for  the  cause  of  education 
in  the  Southern  States.  This  money  was  used  to  establish 
schoolhouses.  Wherever  a  town  raised  five  hundred  dollars 
for  a  school  Peabody  would  give  a  like  sum. 
A  million  dollars  of  the  Peabody  fund  was  finally  used  for 
a  Normal  School  at  Nashville.  The  investment  has  proved  a 
wise  and  beneficent  one. 

He  next  gave  a  million  and  a  half  dollars  to  found  the 
Peabody  Institute  of  Baltimore  ,^  That  this  gift  fired  the 
heart  of  Peter  Cooper  to  do  a  similar  work,  and  if  possible 
a  better  work,  there  is  no  doubt. 

At  the  first  World's  Fair  held  in  London  in  Eighteen  Hundred 
Fifty-one,  Peabody  gave  fifteen  thousand  dollars  toward  the 
exhibition  of  American  inventions,  the  chief  of  which  at  this 
time  were  the  McCormick  Reaper,  Eli  Whitney's  Cotton  Gin, 
and  Colt's  Revolver. 

Peabody  backed  Dr.  Kane  with  a  gift  of  twenty  thousand 
dollars  in  his  search  for  Franklin.  He  established  various 
libraries;  and  gave  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  to  his 
native  town  for  a  Peabody  Institute  Jf  Danvers  has  now 
disappeared  from  the  map  and  the  town  is  Peabody,  a  place 
of  pilgrimage  for  those  who  reverence  that  American 
invention — a  new  virtue — the  Art  of  Giving  Wisely. 
Joshua  Bates,  through  whose  generosity  Boston  secured 
her  Free  Public  Library,  was  an  agent  of  Peabody's,  and 
afterward  his  partner.  Later,  Bates  became  a  member  of 
the  house  of  Barring  Brothers,  and  carried  on  a  business 
92 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

similar  to  that  of  George  Peabody.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  Bates  got  his  philanthropic  impulse  from  Peabody. 
^  In  Eighteen  Hundred  Fifty-six  Peabody  visited  his 
native  town  of  Danvers  after  an  absence  of  over  forty 
years  J^  There  were  great  doings,  in  which  all  the  school- 
children, as  well  as  the  Governor  of  the  State,  had  a  part. 
^  At  Washington,  Peabody  was  the  guest  of  the  President. 
The  House  of  Representatives  and  the  Senate  adjourned 
their  regular  business  to  do  him  honor,  and  he  made  an 
address  to  them.  The  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  invited 
him  to  sit  on  the  bench  when  he  entered  their  Chamber. 
^  For  twenty  years  he  was  America's  unofficial  Chief 
Representative  in  London,  no  matter  who  was  Consul 
or  who  Ambassador. 

Every  year  on  July  Fourth  he  gave  a  dinner  to  the  principal 
Americans  who  happened  to  be  in  London.  To  be  invited 
to  this  dinner  was  an  event  ^  Peabody  himself  always 
presided,  and  there  was  considerable  oratory  sometimes 
of  the  brand  known  as  Southwestern,  which  Peabody 
tolerated  with  gentle  smiles. 

On  one  occasion,  however,  things  did  not  go  smoothly. 
Daniel  Sickles  was  Consul  to  London  and  James  Buchanan, 
afterwards  our  punkest  President,  was  Ambassador.  Sickles 
was  a  good  man,  but  a  fire-eater,  and  a  gentleman  of  marked 
jingo  proclivities. 

Sickles  had  asked  that  Buchanan  preside,  in  which  case 
Buchanan  was  to  call  on  Sickles  for  the  first  toast,  and 
this  toast  was  to  be  **The  President  of  the  United  States." 

93 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

At  the  same  time  Sickles  intended  to  give  the  British  lion's 
tail  a  few  gratuitous  twists. 

Peabody  declined  to  accede  to  Sickles'  wish,  but  he  himself 
presided  and  offered  the  first,  "To  the  Queen  of  England!" 
^  Thereupon,  Sickles  walked  out  with  needless  clatter, 
and  Buchanan  sat  glued  to  his  seat. 
The  affair  came  near  being  an  international  episode. 
Peabody  was  always  an  American,  and  better,  he  was  a 
citizen  of  the  world.  He  loved  America,  but  when  on  English 
soil,  really  guest  of  England,  he  gave  the  Queen  the  place 
of  honor  ^  This  seems  to  us  proper  and  right,  and  at  this 
distance  we  smile  at  the  whole  transaction,  but  we  are 
glad  that  Peabody,  who  paid  for  the  dinner,  had  his  way 
as  to  the  oratorical  guff. 

The  Queen  offered  Peabody  a  Knighthood,  but  he  declined 
saying  that,  "If  Her  Majesty  write  me  a  personal  letter 
endorsing  my  desire  to  help  the  poor  of  London,  I  will  be 
more  than  delighted." 

Victoria  then  wrote  the  letter,  and  she  also  had  a  picture  of 
herself  painted  in  miniature  and  gave  it  to  him.  The  letter 
and  portrait  are  now  in  the  Peabody  Institute  at  Peabody, 
Massachusetts  J^  ^ 

When  Peabody  died  in  Eighteen  Hundred  Sixty-nine,  Queen 
Victoria  ordered  that  his  body  be  placed  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  The  Queen  in  person  attended  the  funeral,  the  flags 
on  Parliament  House  were  lowered  to  half-mast,  and  the 
body  was  attended  to  Westminster  Abbey  by  the  Royal 
Guard.  Gladstone  was  one  of  the  pall-bearers. 
94 


GEORGE         PEABODY 

Later,  it  was  discovered  that  Peabody  had  devised  in  his 
will  that  his  body  should  rest  in  Harmony  Grove,  the 
village  cemetery  at  Danvers,  by  the  side  of  his  father  and 
mother,  and  in  a  spot  over  which  his  boyish  feet  had  trod. 
^  The  body  was  then  removed  from  the  Abbey  and  placed 
on  board  the  British  man-of-war  ** Monarch,"  in  the 
presence  of  the  Prime  Minister,  the  Secretary  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  many  distinguished  citizens.  The  "Monarch" 
was  convoyed  to  America  by  a  French  and  an  American 
gunboat  J^  ^ 

No  such  honors  have  ever  been  paid  to  the  memory  of  a 
simple  American  citizen. 

Well  did  the  Rev.  Newman  Hall  say,  in  his  funeral  oration : 
"George  Peabody  waged  a  war  against  want  and  woe.  He 
created  homes — he  never  desolated  one  ^  He  sided  with 
the  friendless,  the  houseless,  and  his  life  was  guided  by  a 
law  of  love  which  none  could  ever  wish  to  repeal.  His  was 
the  task  of  cementing  the  hearts  of  Briton  and  American, 
pointing  both  to  their  duty  to  God  and  to  Hiunankind.  ** 


f5 


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WOMAN'S     WORK 

AN    INQUIRY    AND    AN    ASSUMPTION 
S:Y         ALICE.        HUBBARD 

^P  ifjaiRS.  HUBBARD  here  sets  forth  her 
aU  U§-  ideas  with  neither  screech  nor  purr, 
^ — ^^^  as  to  what  general  line  of  action 
women  should  follow  in  order  to  gain 
the  largest  measure  of  good  for  them- 
selves and  the  world.  Mrs.  Hubbard 
believes  in  a  like  wage  for  a  like  serv- 
ice, and  thinks  that  if  women  are 
ever  free  they  must  emancipate  them- 
selves from  the  self-imposed  bondage 
to  dress,  society  and  superstition. 
Q  While  the  view  can  not  be  called  strictly 
orthodox,  yet  the  writer  believes  thai  men  are 
really  no  worse  than  women  make  them. 
The  book  is  scarcely  a  soporific,  and  should  not 
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Vol.  25 


OCTOBER,  MCMIX 


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Kntered  at  th€  poat-oace  in  Eist  Aurora,  New  York,  for  transmission  as  second-class  matter. 
Copyright,  19W,  by  Elbert  Hubbard,  Editor  and  Publisher. 


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Name 

Address 

Beginning 

Canadian  Postage,  forty  cents  extra.  Foreign,  sixty  cents  extra 

Health  and  Wealth              -             -  -  Elbert  Hubbard 

Woman's  Work                     -             -  -  Alice  Hubbard 

Battle  of  Waterloo               -             -  -  Victor  Hugo 

White  Hyacinths                   -             -  -  Elbert  Hubbard 

The  Rubaiyat            -             -             -  .  Omar  Khayyam 

A  William  Morris  Book                    -  Hubbard  and  Thomson 

Crimes  Against  Criminals                -  Robert  G.  Ingersoll 

The  Man  of  Sorrows            ...  Elbert  Hubbard 

Bound  Vol.  Little  Journeys              -  -  Elbert  Hubbard 

The  Doctors              ...  -  Fra  Elbertus 


THE  merchant  of  the  future  will  not  only  be  an  economist 
and  an  industrial  leader — he  will  be  a  teacher  and  a 
humanitarian.— A.  T.  STEWART,  in  a  Letter  to  President 
Grant  jt  jt 


A.     T.     STEWART 


LITTLE   JOURNEYS 

HEN  His  Excellency  Wu  Ting  Fang 
was  asked  what  country  he  would 
live  in,  if  he  had  his  choice, 
his  unhesitating  answer  was, 
**Ireland!" 

The  reply  brought  forth  another 
question,  as  his  secretive  and 
clever  Excellency  knew  it  would, 
namely,  "Why?" 
"Because  Ireland  is  the  only 
country  in  the  world  in  which 
the  Irish  have  no  influence." 
Also,  it  might  be  stated,  although  it  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  case,  that  the  Jews  are  very  much  more  influential 
in  New  York  City  than  they  are  in  Jerusalem.  The  Turk  is 
to  Palestine  what  the  English  are  to  Ireland. 
The  human  product  has  to  be  transplanted  in  order  to  get 
the  best  results,  just  as  the  finest  roses  of  California  are 
slipped  near  Powers*  Four  Corners,  Rochester,  Monroe 
County,  New  York,  and  are  then  shipped  to  the  West  J(r 
A  new  environment  means,  often,  spiritual  power  before 
unguessed.  The  struggle  of  the  man  to  fit  himself  into  a 
new  condition  and  thus  harmonize  with  his  surrotmdings, 
brings  out  his  latent  energies  and  discovers  for  him  untapped 
reservoirs  ^  ^ 

It  was  Edmund  Burke  who  said,  "The  Irish  are  all  right, 
but  you  must  catch  them  young." 

When  England  wants  a  superbly  strong  man  she  has  to 

97 


A.         T.  STEWART 

send  to  Ireland  for  him.  Note  Burke,  her  greatest  orator; 
Swift,  her  greatest  satirist;  Goldsmith,  her  sweetest  poet; 
Arthur  Wellesley,  her  greatest  fighter — not  to  mention 
Lord  Bobs — all  awfully  Irish. 

And  to  America  comes  Alexander  Turney  Stewart,  aged 
twenty,  very  Irish,  shy,  pink,  blue  of  eye,  with  downy 
whiskers,  intending  to  teach  school  until  he  could  prepare 
himself  for  the  **meenistry." 

It  was  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  Twenty ;  and  at  that  time 
the  stars  of  the  Irish  schoolmaster  were  in  the  ascendant. 
Por  a  space  of  forty  years — say  from  Eighteen  Hundred 
Five  to  Eighteen  Hundred  Forty-five — eighty  per  cent  of 
all  graduates  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  came  straight 
to  America  and  found  situations  awaiting  them. 
Young  Stewart  had  been  at  Trinity  College  two  years, 
when  by  the  death  of  his  grandfather  he  found  himself 
without  funds.  His  father  died  when  he  was  three  years 
old,  and  his  grandparents  took  him  in  charge.  His  mother, 
it  seems,  married  again,  and  was  busy  raising  a  goodly 
brood  of  Callahans,  several  of  whom  in  after  years  came 
to  New  York,  and  were  given  jobs  at  the  A.  T.  Stewart 
button-counter. 

Young  Stewart  could  have  borrowed  money  to  keep  him 
in  college,  for  he  knew  that  when  he  was  twenty-one  he 
would  come  into  an  inheritance  from  his  father's  estate. 
However,  on  an  impulse,  he  just  sold  his  books,  pawned 
his  watch  and  bought  passage  for  America,  the  land  of 
promise  J^  ^ 

98 


w 


The  boy  had  the  look  of  a  scholar,  and  he  had  dignity, 
as  shy  folks  often  have.  Also,  he  had  a  Trinity  College 
brogue,  a  thing  quite  as  desirable  as  a  Trinity  College 
degree.  Later,  A.  T.  Stewart  lost  his  brogue,  but  Trinity 
College  sent  him  all  the  degrees  she  had,  including  an 
LL.  D.,  which  arrived  on  his  seventieth  birthday. 
The  Irish  built  our  railroads,  but  Paddy  no  longer  works 
on  the  section — he  owns  the  railroad.  Note  the  Harrimans, 
the  Hanrahans,  the  McCreas,  the  McDougalls,  the  0*Donnells> 
the  0*Days,  the  Hills — all  just  one  generation  removed  from 
the  bog,  and  the  smell  of  peat-smoke  still  upon  them. 
The  Irish  schoolmasters  glided  easily  from  taking  charge 
of  the  school  into  taking  charge  of  our  municipal  affairs 
— for  a  consideration — and  their  younger  brothers,  their 
cousins,  their  uncles  and  their  aunts,  found  jobs  yawning 
for  them  as  soon  as  they  had  pushed  past  the  gates  of 
Castle  Garden. 

One  year  of  school-teaching  in  New  York  City,  and  A.  T. 
Stewart  reached  his  majority.  He  had  saved  just  two 
hundred  dollars  of  his  salary;  and  he  sailed  away,  back 
to  Ould  Ireland,  a  successful  man.  Now  he  would  go 
back  to  Trinity  and  complete  his  course,  and  be  glorified. 
He  had  proved  his  ability  to  meet  the  world  on  a  fair  footing 
and  take  care  of  himself. 

All  of  which  speaks  well  for  young  Misther  Stewart,  and  it 
also  speaks  well  for  his  grandparents,  who  had  brought 
him  up  in  a  good,  sensible  way  to  work,  economize  and 
keep  a  civil  tongue  in  his  Irish  head.  His  grandfather  did  n't 

99 


A.  T.  STEWART 

exactly  belong  to  the  gentry — it  was  better  than  that — he 
was  an  Irish  clerque  who  had  become  a  scrivener,  and  then 
risen  to  a  professorship. 

A.  T.  Stewart  was  heir  to  a  goodly  amount  of  decent  pride, 
which  always  kept  him  in  the  society  of  educated  people, 
and  made  him  walk  with  the  crown  of  his  head  high  and 
his  chin  in.  He  thought  well  of  himself — and  the  world  is 
very  apt  to  take  a  man  at  his  own  estimate. 
A  year  in  **The  States"  had  transformed  the  young  man 
from  a  greenhorn  into  a  gentleman.  The  climate  of  the 
West  had  agreed  with  him.  He  himself  told  how  on  going 
back  to  Belfast  the  city  seemed  to  have  grown  smaller  and 
very  quiet  J^  He  compared  everything  to  Broadway,  and 
smiled  at  a  jaimting-car  compared  to  a  'bus. 
When  he  went  to  Trinity  College,  and  saw  his  class,  from 
whom  he  had  parted  only  a  year  before,  all  thought  of 
remaining  two  years  to  graduate  faded  from  his  mind. 
^  An  ocean  seemed  to  divide  him  from  both  teachers 
and  pupils.  The  professors  were  stupid  and  slow;  the  pupils 
were  boys — he  was  a  man.  They,  too,  felt  the  difference, 
and  called  him  **Sir."  And  when  one  of  them  introduced 
him  to  a  Freshman  as  **an  American,"  Freshy  bowed  low, 
and  the  breast  of  A.  T.  Stewart  expanded  with  pride.  Not 
even  the  offer  of  a  professorship  could  have  kept  him  in 
Ireland.  He  saw  himself  the  principal  of  an  American  College, 
"filling"  the  pulpit  of  the  college  chapel  on  Sunday,  pictur- 
ing the  fate  of  the  unregenerate  in  fiery  accents.  The  Yankee 
atmosphere  had  made  him  a  bit  heady. 

100 


A  . 


T  . 


W 


The  legacy  left  him  by  his  grandfather  was  exactly  one 

thousand  pounds — five  thousand  dollars.  What  to  do  with 

this  money,  he  did  not  know!  Anjrway  he  would  take  it  to 

America  and  wisely  invest  it. 

In  New  York  he  had  boarded  with  an  Irish  family,  of  which 

the  head  of  the  house  was  a  draper.  This  man  had  a  small 

store  on  West  Street,  and  Alexander  had  helped  tend  store 

on  Saturdays,  and  occasionally  evenings  when  ships  came 

in  and  sailors  with  money  to  waste  lumbered  and  lubbered 

past,  often  with  gaily-painted  galleys  in  tow. 

The  things  you  do  at  twenty  are  making  indelible  marks 

on  your  character.  Stewart  had  no  special  taste  for  trade, 

but  experience  spells  power — potential  or  actual. 

With  five  thousand  dollars  in  his  belt,  all  in  gold,  he  felt 

uncomfortable. 

And  so  on  a  ventiure  he  expended  half  of  it  in  good  Irish 

lace,  insertions  and  scallop  trimmings.  Irish  linens,  Irish 

poplins  and  Irish  lace  were  being  shipped  to  New  York — 

itjcould  not  be  a  loss!  He  would  follow  suit.  If  he  was 

robbed  of  his  money  he  could  not  at  the  same  time  be 

robbed  of  the  drapery. 

And  so  he  sailed  away  for  New  York — and  Ireland  looked 

more  green  and  more  beautiful  as  the  great  uplifting  green 

hills  faded  from  sight  and  were  lost  to  view  in  the  mist  jt 


lOI 


w 


N  the  ship  that  carried  Stewart 
back  to  New  York  was  a  young 
man  who  professed  to  be  an 
adept  in  the  draper's  line.  Very 
naturally,  Stewart  got  acquainted 
with  this  man,  and  told  him  of 
his  investment  in  dry-goods.  The 
man  offered  to  sell  the  stock  for 
Stewart  J>  ^ 

In  those  days  the  Irish  pedler 
with  his  pack  full  of  curious  and 
wonderful  things  was  a  common 
sight  at  the  farmhouses.  He  rivaled  both  Yankee-Gentile 
and  Jew,  and  his  blarney  was  a  commodity  that  stood  him 
in  good  stead. 

Stewart's  new-found  friend  promised  to  sell  the  stock  in 
short  order,  by  going  right  out  among  the  people.  He  had 
no  money  of  his  own,  and  Stewart  was  doubly  pleased  to 
think  he  could  set  a  worthy  man  up  in  business,  and  help 
himself  at  the  same  time. 

On  reaching  New  York,  the  friend  was  fitted  out  with  all 
the  goods  he  could  carry,  and  duly  headed  for  New  Jersey. 
fl  In  two  days  he  came  back.  He  had  sold  most  of  the  goods 
all  right,  and  with  the  money  gotten  gloriously  drunk;  also 
he  had  bought  drinks  for  all  the  Irishmen  he  could  find,  and 
naturally  they  were  many. 

Stewart  even  then  did  not  give  up  the  case.  He  rented  a  small 
store  at  Two  Hundred  Eighty-three  Broadway,  and  decided 

102 


A.  T.  STEWART 

that  by  staying  close  to  his  friend  he  could  keep  him  in  the 

straight  and  narrow  path  of  probity.  As  for  himself  he  would 

teach  school  as  usual ;  and  he  and  his  agent  could  use  the 

back  of  the  little  store  for  a  sleeping-room. 

It  was  a  week  before  his  school  was  to  begin,  but  in  that 

week   he   became   convinced   that   his   friend   was   not   a 

merchant,   and  to  get  that  first   month's  rent  he  would 

have  to  run  the  store  himself. 

So  he  put  the  disciple  of  Bacchus  on  the  slide,  and  started 

in  alone.  ^Stewart  had  a  little  inconvenient  pride  which 

prevented  his  turning  pedler. 

Instead  of  going  to  the  world  he  would  bring  the  world  to 

him.  With  this  end  in  view  the  New  York  Daily  Advertiser 

for    September    Second,    Eighteen    Hundred    Twenty-five, 

contained  this  notice: 

A.  T.  Stewart,  just  arrived  from  Belfast,  offers  for  sale 
to  the  Ladies  of  New  York  a  choice  selection  of  Fresh 
Dry-Goods  at  Two  Hundred  Eighty-three  Broadway. 

The  advertisement  was  a  good  one — the  proof  of  which  was 

that  many  puffick  ladies  called  to  see  the  stock  and  the  man 

just  arrived  from  Belfast. 

Stewart  was  a  wise  advertiser.  His  use  of  the  word  "Ladies" 

showed  good  psychology. 

The  young  merchant  had  n't  much  more  than  taken  down 

his  shutters  before  a  lady  entered  the  store  and  acknowledged 

she  was  one.  She  lived  in  the  next  block,  and  as  soon  as  she 

read  the  advertisement  in  the  paper,  yet  damp  from  the  press, 

she  came  right  over. 

103 


A.         T.  STEWART 

Stewart  spread  out  his  wares  with  shaking  hands — he  must 
make  a  sale  to  his  first  caller  or  he  would  never  have  luck. 
The  lady  bought  "scallops"  and  lace  to  the  extent  of  two 
dollars,  on  Stewart's  throwing  her  in  gratis  sundry  yards 
of  braid,  a  card  of  buttons  and  a  paper  of  hooks  and  eyes. 
^  The  woman  paid  the  money,  and  A.  T.  Stewart  was 
launched,  then  and  there,  on  a  career.  ^  He  was  a  handsome 
young  fellow — intelligent,  and  never  too  familiar,  but  just 
familiar  enough.  Women  liked  him;  he  was  so  respectful, 
almost  reverent,  in  his  attitude  toward  them. 
It  took  a  better  man  to  be  a  salesman  then  than  now  ^ 
Every  article  was  marked  in  cipher,  with  two  prices.  One 
figure  represented  what  the  thing  cost  and  the  other  was 
the  selling-price  ^  You  secxxred  the  selling-price,  if  you 
could,  and  if  you  could  n't,  you  took  what  you  could  get, 
right  down  to  the  cost  figure.  The  motto  was,  never  let  a 
customer  go  without  selling  him  something.  The  rule  now 
is  to  sell  people  what  they  want,  but  never  urge  any  one 
to  buy  ^  J^ 

Both  buyer  and  seller  then  enjoyed  these  fencing-bouts 
of  the  bazaar.  The  time  for  simple  dealing  between  man 
and  man  had  not  yet  come.  To  haggle,  banter  and  blarney 
were  parts  of  the  game,  and  parts  which  the  buyer  demanded 
asfhis  right.  He  would  only  trade  at  places  where  he  thought 
he  was  getting  the  start  of  the  dealer  and  where  his  cleverness 
had  an  opportunity  for  exercise  ^  The  thought  of  getting 
something  for  nothing  was  in  the  air,  and  to  get  the  better 
of  somebody  was  regarded  as  proper  and  right. 
104 


A.  T.  STEWART 

Had  a  retail  dealer  then  advertised  One  Price  and  no 
deviation  to  any  one,  the  customers  would  surely  have 
given  him  absent  treatment  Ji>  The  verbal  fencing,  the 
forays  of  wit,  the  clash  of  accusation  and  the  final  forlorn 
sigh  of  surrender  of  the  seller,  were  things  which  the  buyer 
demanded  as  his,  or  more  properly  her  right. 
Often  these  encounters  attracted  interested  bystanders, 
who  saw  the  skilful  buyer  berate  the  seller  and  run  down 
his  goods,  until  the  poor  iman,  abjectjand  undone,  gave 
up.  To  get  the  better  of  the  imale  man  and  force  him  to 
his  knees  is  the  pleasant  diversion  of  a  certain  type  of 
feminine  mind.  Before  marriage  the  jwoman  always,  I 
am  told,  takes  this  high-handed  attitude.  Perhaps  she 
dimly  realizes  that  her  time  for  tyranny  is  short  Jt>  To 
make  the  man  a  suppliant  is  the  delight  of  her  soul.  After 
marriage  the  positions  are  reversed.  But  in  the  good  old 
days,  most  women,  not  absolutely  dessicated  by  age  or 
ironed  out  by  life's  vicissitudes,  found  a  sort  of  secondary 
sexual  delight  in  these  shopping  assaults  on  the  gentlemanly 
party  on  the  other  side  of  the  counter. 
We  have  all  seen  women  enter  into  heated  arguments, 
and  indulge  in  a  half-quarrel  with  attractive  men,  about 
nothing.  If  the  man  is  wise  he  allows  the  woman  to  force 
him  into  a  comer,  where  he  yields  with  a  grace,  ill-concealed, 
and  thus  is  he  victor,  without  the  lady  knowing  it.  This  is  a 
sort  of  salesmanship  that  Sheldon  knows  nothing  of,  and 
that,  happily,  is,  for  the  most  part,  not  yet  obsolete.  A.  T. 
Stewart  was  a  natural  salesman  of  the  old  school.  He  was  a 

105 


A.         T.  STEWART 

success  from  the  very  start.  He  was  tall ;  he  had  good  teeth,  a 
handsome  face,  a  graceful  form  and  dressed  with  exquisite  care. 
flXhis  personal  charm  of  manner  was  his  chief  asset.  And 
while  business  then  was  barter,  and  the  methods  of  booth  and 
bazaar  prevailed,  Stewart  was  wise  enough  never  to  take 
advantage  of  a  customer,  regarding  either  price  or  quality. 
If  the  buyer  held  off  long  enough  she  might  buy  very  close 
to  cost,  but  if  she  bought  quickly  and  at  Stewart^s  figures, 
he  had  a  way  of  throwing  in  a  yard  of  ribbon,  or  elastic, 
or  a  spool  or  two  of  thread,  all  unasked  for,  that  equalized 
the  transaction.  He  seems  to  have  been  the  very  first  man  in 
trade  to  realize  that  to  hold  your  trade  you  must  make  a 
friend  of  the  customer.  In  a  year  he  had  outgrown  the  little 
store  at  Two  Hundred  Eighty-three  Broadway,  and  he  moved 
to  a  larger  place  at  Two  Hundred  Sixty-two  Broadway  J- 
Then  came  a  new  store,  built  for  him  by  a  worthy  real-estate 
owner,  John  Jacob  Astor,  by  name. 

This  store  was  thirty  feet  wide,  one  hundred  feet  deep,  and 
three  stories  high,  with  a  basement. 
It  was  a  genuine  Dry-Goods  Store. 

It  had  a  ladies'  parlor  on  the  second  floor,  and  a  dressing- 
room  with  full-length  mirrors,  ordered  from  Paris  J> 
They  were  the  first  full-length  mirrors  in  America,  and 
A.  T.  Stewart  issued  a  special  invitation  to  the  ladies  of 
New  York  to  come  and  see  them  and  see  themselves  as 
others  saw  them.  To  arrange  these  mirrors  so  that  a  lady 
could  see  the  buttons  on  the  back  of  her  dress  was  regarded 
as  the  final  achievement  of  legerdemain. 
1 06 


A.  T.  STEWART 

The  A.  T.  Stewart  store  was  a  woman's  store  ^  In  hiring 
salesmen  the  owner  picked  only  gentlemen  of  presence. 
The  "floor-walker**  had  his  rise  in  A.  T.  Stewart.  Once  a 
woman  asked  a  floor-walker  this  question,  **Do  you  keep 
stationery?**  and  the  answer  was,  "If  I  did  Td  never  draw 
my  salary.**  This  is  a  silly  story  and  if  it  ever  happened, 
it  did  not  transpire  at  A.  T.  Stewart*s.  There  the  floor-walker 
was  always  as  a  cow  that  is  being  milked.  For  the  first 
fifteen  years  of  his  career  Stewart  made  it  a  rule  to  meet 
and  greet  every  customer,  personally. 
The  floor-walker — or  "head  usher,**  as  he  was  called — was 
either  the  proprietor  or  his  personal  representative. 
Stewart  never  offered  to  shake  hands  with  a  customer,  no 
matter  how  well  he  knew  the  lady,  but  bowed  low,  and 
with  becoming  gravity  and  gentle  voice  inquired  her  wishes. 
He  then  conducted  her  to  the  counter  where  the  goods  she 
wanted  were  kept.  As  the  clerk  would  take  down  his  goods 
Stewart  had  a  way  of  reproving  the  man  thus:  "Not  that, 
Mr.  Johnson,  not  that — you  seem  to  forget  whom  you  are 
waiting  on!** 

When  the  lady  left,  Stewart  accompanied  her  to  the  door. 
He  wore  a  long  beard,  shaved  his  upper  lip,  and  looked  like 
a  Presbyterian  clergyman  making  pastoral  calls. 
Silks,  dress-goods  and  laces  gradually  grew  to  be  the  A.  T. 
Stewart  specialties.  That  the  man  had  taste  and  never  ran 
stripes  around  a  stout  lady,  or  made  a  very  slim  one  look 
more  so,  is  a  matter  of  history.  "I  have  been  hoping  you 
would  come,  for  we  have  a  piece  of  silk  that  seems  to  have 

107 


A  . 


W 


R 


been  made  for  you.  I  ordered  it  put  aside  until  you  could  see 
it.  Mr.  Johnson,  that  silk  pattern,  please,  that  I  told  you  not 
to  show  to  any  one  until  Mrs.  Brevoort  called.  Thank  you ; 
yes,  that  is  the  one." 

Then  there  were  ways  of  saying,  "Oh,  Mr.  Johnson,  you 
remember  the  duplicate  of  that  silk-dress  pattern  which 
was  made  for  Queen  Victoria — I  think  Mrs.  Astor  would 
like  to  examine  it !  '*  ^Thus  was  the  subtle  art  of  compliment 
fused  with  commerce  and  made  to  yield  a  dividend. 


HE    prevailing   methods    in   trade 
are  always  keyed  by  the  public. 
The  merchant  is  a  part  of  the  public ; 
he  ministers  to  the  public.  A  public 
that   demands   a   high   degree   of 
honesty  and  unselfish  service  will 
get  it.  Sharp  practise  and  double- 
dealing  among  the  people  find  an 
outcrop  in  public  affairs.  Rogues 
in    a    community   will    have    no 
trouble  in  finding   rogue   lawyers 
to  do  their  bidding.  In  fact,  rogue 
clients  evolve  rogue  attorneys.  Foolish  patients  evolve  fool 
doctors.  And  superstition'and  silliness  in  the  pew  find  a  fitting 
expression  in  the  pulpit. 
io8 


A.  T.  STEWART 

The  first  man  in  New  York  to  work  the  "Cost-Sale"  scheme 
was  A.  T.  Stewart.  In  Eighteen  Hundred  Thirty  he  advertised : 
"Mr.  A.  T.  Stewart,  having  purchased  a  large  amount  of 
goods  soon  to  arrive,  is  obliged,  in  order  to  make  room  for 
these,  to  dispose  of  all  the  stock  he  has  on  hand,  which  will 
be  sold  at  Actual  Cost,  beginning  Monday  at  eight  A.  M. 
Ladies  are  requested  to  come  early  and  avoid  the  crush.** 
^  At  another  time  he  advertised:  "A.  T.  Stewart  is  obliged 
to  raise  a  large  amount  of  money  to  pay  for  silks  and  dress- 
goods  that  are  now  being  made  for  him  in  Europe.  To  secure 
this  money  he  is  obliged  to  hold  a  Cost  Sale  of  everything 
in  his  store.  This  sale  will  begin  Friday  at  noon,  and  end 
at  midnight  on  Saturday,  the  day  after.** 
Stewart  also  had  "Fire  Sales,**  although  it  speaks  well  for 
himself  that  he  never  had  a  fire  in  his  own  store.  If  others 
had  fires  he  was  on  hand  to  buy  the  salvage,  and  whether 
he  bought  it  or  not  he  managed  to  have  a  "Fire  Sale.** 
He  loved  the  smoke  of  commercial  rhetoric,  and  the  excite- 
ment of  seeing  the  crowd.  This  applies  more  particularly  to 
the  first  twenty  years  of  his  career. 

During  those  first  years  he  used  to  have  a  way  of  opening 
cases  on  the  sidewalk  and  selling  from  the  case  to  the  first 
person  who  made  an  offer.  This  brought  him  good  luck, 
especially  if  the  person  had  cross-eyes  or  was  a  hunchback. 
The  messy  clutter  in  front  of  the  store  and  the  pushing 
crowds  advertised  the  business.  ^Finally,  a  competitor  next 
door  complained  to  the  police  about  Stewart*s  blocking  the 
sidewalk.  The  police  interfered  and  Stewart  was  given  one 

109 


A.  T.  STEWART 

day  to  clear  off  the  walk.  At  once  he  put  up  a  big  sign:  "Our 
neighbors  to  the  right,  not  being  able  to  compete  with  us, 
demand  that  we  shall  open  no  more  goods  on  the  sidewalk. 
To  make  room  we  are  obliged  to  have  a  Cost  Sale.  You  buy 
your  goods,  pay  for  them  and  carry  them  away — we  can*t 
even  afford  to  pay  for  wrapping-paper  and  string. " 
All  this  tended  to  keep  the  town  awake,  and  the  old  Irish 
adage  of  "Where  McGinty  sits  is  the  head  of  the  table" 
became  true  of  A.  T.  Stewart.  His  store  was  the  center  of 
trade.  When  he  moved,  the  trade  moved  with  him. 
To  all  charitable  objects  he  gave  liberally.  He  gave  to  all 
churches,  and  was  recognized  as  a  sort  of  clergyman  himself, 
and  in  his  dress  he  managed  to  look  the  part. 
The  ten  per  cent  off  to  clergymen  and  school-teachers  was 
his  innovation.  This  ten  per  cent  was  supposed  to  be  his 
profit,  but  forty  per  cent  would  have  been  nearer  it  J'  Of 
course  the  same  discount  had  to  be  given  to  any  member 
of  a  clergyman's  or  a  teacher's  family.  And  so  we  hear  of  one 
of  Stewart's  cashiers  saying,  "Over  half  of  the  people  in 
New  York  are  clergymen  or  teachers."  The  temptation  to 
pass  one's  self  off  for  a  clergyman  at  Stewart's  was  a  bait 
that  had  no  lure  when  you  visited  Girard  College. 
All  this  was  but  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  times — an  index  of 
the  Zeitgeist.  Bear-baiting,  dog-fighting  and  open  gambling 
had  given  way  to  milder  excitements,  and  the  sweet  desire 
to  smuggle  or  get  an  unauthorized  discount  was  the  lingering 
joy  of  the  chase. 


no 


T  . 


•w 


R^  :t 


BOUT  lEighteen  Hundred  Sixty, 
the  **Cost  Sales"  which  took  place 
at  Stewart's,  usually  twice  a  year, 
gave  way  to  "Remnant  Sales." 
This  meant  to  the  buyer  that  she 
bought  all  that  was  left  of  the 
piece.  In  many  instances  this  was 
so,  but  in  the  main,  not. 
Experience  had  shown  that  a  buyer 
bought  at  a  purchase  a  certain 
"number  of  yards  of  sheeting, 
toweling  /or|  dress-goods.  Antici- 
pating the  Remnant  Sale,  the  whole|Stewart  force  would 
work  all  night  cutting  up  cloth  and  preparing  remnants  of 
a  kind  and  quantity  to  catch  the  average  buyer.  The  piece 
or  remnant  was  marked  in^'plain  figures,  and  here  there 
was  no  bidding  and  no  haggle.  The  trade  was  made  quickly 
or  not  at  all.  Occasionally,  the  receipts  on  a  Remnant  Sale 
would  run  up  to  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  a  single  day. 
This  was  only  possible  through''one}price  and  rapid  trading, 
with  all  the  fiction  of  barter  [eliminated. 
And  it  did  one  great  thing -.fitf^forced  upon  the  growing 
intelligence  of  the  world  that\the  One-Price  System  was 
a  big  economizer  of  time  and|]money,  and  was  to  the  best 
interests  of  both  buyer  and  seller  Ji>  The  seller  could  do 
more  business  in  the  same  space. ^Much  friction  was  avoided, 
since  the  seller  in  the  days  of  haggle"always  had  the  best  of 
It:  He  pitted  his  experience  and  knowledge  against  that  of 

III 


A.  T.  STEWART 

the  buyer.  This  clash  of  minds  required  a  salesman  of  superior 
ability,  and  if  the  buyer  was  not  also  clever  there  was  great 
danger  of  his  being  cheated. 

There  has  been  considerable  argument  as  to  who  introduced 
the  One-Price  System.  The  fact  is  that  the  righteousness  of 
the  idea  gradually  became  racial.  It  was  in  the  air.  Buyer  and 
seller  alike  had  come  to  feel  a  dissatisfaction  with  the  old 
methods  of  "dog  eat  dog." 

A.  T.  Stewart  used  to  stand  his  salesmen  up  in  line  and  give 
them  lectures  on  the  proper  way  to  handle  customers.  One 
thing  he  used  to  say  was  this:  "You  will  deal  with  ignorant, 
opinionated  and  innocent  people.  You  will  often  have  an 
opportunity  to  cheat  them.  If  they  could,  they  would  cheat 
you,  or  force  you  to  sell  at  less  than  cost.  You  must  be  wise, 
but  not  too  wise  d''  You  must  never  actually  cheat  the 
customer,  even  if  you  can.  If  she  pays  the  full  figure,  present 
her  a  hank  of  dress-braid,  a  card  of  buttons,  a  pair  of  shoe- 
strings. You  must  make  her  happy  and  satisfied,  so  she  will 
come  back.*' 

Honesty  as  a  business  asset  was  being  realized,  but  the 
salesman  had  to  think  twice  and  hard,  often,  in  order  to 
be  fairly  decent.  Women  would  buy  an  article  and  then 
hearing  that  a  neighbor  had  bought  for  less  would  come  back 
and  levy  blackmail,  demanding  a  comb  or  a  yard  of  lace 
as  the  price  of  peace. 

Then  it  was,  about  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  Sixty-five, 
that  John  Wanamaker,  a  young  merchant  of  Philadelphia, 
cut  the  Gordian  knot  by  boldly  advertising,  "One  Price, 

112 


A  . 


T  . 


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always  and  forever,  and  your  money  back,  if  not  satisfied." 

^  It  was  a  heroic  and  daring  thing  to  do.  It  lessened  the 

work  of  shopping  immensely ;  it  reduced  the  toil  of  salesmen ; 

it  saved  time  for  everybody.  Moreover,  there  was  a  saving 

in  salaries  of  salesmen,  since  a  person  of  moderate  experience 

could  now  wait  on  customers.  Women  were  hired,  and  girls 

were  used  where  before  only  men  grown  gray  could  be  trusted 

to  parry  the  thrust  of  the  buyer. 

The  plan  worked. 

And  A.  T.  Stewart,  who  had  his  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the 

world  of  trade,  sent  one  of  his  lieutenants  over  to  Philadelphia 

to  investigate. 

The  man  handed  in  a  written  report  and  gave  it  as  his  opinion 

that  the  One-Price  System  had  come  to  stay. 

And  A.  T.  Stewart  soon  adopted  it  as  a  part  of  the  working 

policy  of  the  Business  Palace. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  John  Wanamaker  invented  the 

One-Price  System  in  retail  trade,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  he  was 

the  first  man  to  put  it  into  execution,  and  widely  advertise 

it.  A.  T.  Stewart  taught  John  Wanamaker  a  great  many 

things,  and  it  is  very  certain  that  John  Wanamaker  taught 

A.  T.  Stewart  at  least  one. 


"3 


w 


T.  STEWART  was  alive,  alert  and 
sensitive  to  the  spirit  of  the  times. 
He  kept  abreast  with  the  best 
thought  of  the  best  people.  The 
idea  of  opening  boxes  and  bales 
on  the  sidewalk  was  abandoned 
early  in  the  game;  and  the  en- 
deavor was  to  show  the  fabric 
only  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions.  Stewart  was  reaching 
out  |for  a  higher  clientele.  The 
motto  became,  "Not  how  cheap, 
but  how  good." 

If  A.  T.  Stewart  sold  goods  at  an  average  proj&t  of,  say, 
thirty  per  cent,  he  could  well  afford  to  sell  a  small  portion 
of  his  stock  at  cost,  or  even  at  ten  per  cent  below  cost.  He 
knew  his  stocks,  and  he  made  it  a  point  never  to  carry  goods 
over  from  one  year  to  another. 

Before  he  held  one  of  his  famous  '*Cost  Sales,"  he  would 
personally  work  all  night,  taking  down  from  the  shelves 
and  out  of  drawers  and  show-cases  everything  in  the  store. 
Then  he  himself  would  dictate  what  each  article  should  be 
sold  for.  Here  was  exercise  for  a  mind  that  worked  by 
intuition  J>  Ji> 

The  master  decided  instantly  on  how  much  this  thing  would 
bring  J^  jt 

In  railroad  managing  there  are  two  kinds  of  making  rates. 
One  is  the  carefully  figured-out  cost  of  transportation.  The 
114 


A.  T.  STEWART 

other  plan  is  to  make  a  rate  that  will  move  the  tonnage  J' 
A  regular  passenger  rate  is  the  rate  that  will  afford  a  profit. 
An  "excursion  rate,'*  a  "homeseekers*  rate,'*  an  ** old-home 
rate,"  is  the  one  that  experience  shows  is  necessary  to  tempt 
people  to  travel. 

Dry-goods  deteriorate  in  quality  when  kept  on  the  shelves  for 
several  months.  Worse  than  that,  they  cease  to  attract  the 
buyers.  People  go  where  there  is  life,  activity,  and  are  moved 
by  that  which  is  youthful,  new  and  fresh  ^  Old  stocks 
become  dead  stocks,  and  dead  stocks  mean  dead  business 
and  dead  men — bankruptcy. 

When  it  came  to  selling  old  stocks,  Stewart  paid  no  attention 
to  the  cost.  He  marked  the  tag  in  big,  plain  figures  in  red  ink 
at  the  price  he  thought  would  move  the  goods.  And  usually 
he  was  right. 

We  hear  once  of  his  marking  a  piece  of  dress-goods  forty-nine 
cents  a  yard.  A  department  salesman  came  and  in  alarm 
explained  that  the  goods  cost  fifty-three. 
"That  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case,"  replied  Stewart; 
"we  would  not  buy  it  today  at  fifty-three,  and  we  do  not 
want  the  stuff  on  our  shelves  even  at  forty-nine." 
"But,"  said  the  manager,  "this  is  a  Cost  Sale,  and  if  we 
sell  below  cost  we  should  explain  that  fact  to  the  customers." 
Q  And  the  answer  was,  "Young  man,  you  must  tell  the 
customer  only  what  she  will  believe.  The  actual  truth  is 
for  ourselves." 

Stewart  worked  for  an  average  of  profit  and  this  he  secured. 
His  receipts  mounted  steadily  year  by  year,  until  in  Eighteen 

115 


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R 


Hundred  Fifty  they  were  ten  thousand  dollars  a  day.  In 
Eighteen  Hundred  Sixty  they  were  over  twenty  thousand 
dollars  a  day.  And  when  he  moved  into  his  Business  Palace 
at  Astor  Place,  Tenth  Street  and  Broadway,  the  sales  jumped 
to  an  average  of  over  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  day. 


HEN  A.  T.  Stewart  built  his  Busi- 
ness Palace  in  Eighteen  Hundred 
Sixty-five,  it  was  the  noblest  busi- 
ness structure  in  America. 
Much  of  the  iron  used  in  it  was 
supplied  by  Peter  Cooper,  and  that 
worthy  man  was  also  consulted 
as  to  the  plans. 

Just  a  square  away  from  Stewart's 
Business    Palace    stands    Cooper 
Union  ^  J- 
In    selecting   this   location  A.  T. 

Stewart  was    influenced    largely  by  the  fact  that  it  was 

so  near  to  that  center  of  art  and  education  which  Peter 

Cooper  had  made  world-wide  in  fame. 

Stewart  said,  "My  store  shall  vie  with  your  museum,  and 

people  will  throng  it  as  they  do  an  exposition." 

And  his  prophecy  proved  true. 

At  his  death  in  Eighteen  Hundred  Seventy-six  Stewart  was 
ii6 


w 


the  richest  man  in  New  York,  save  an  Astor  and  a  Vanderbilt, 

and  these  had  mherited  their  wealth — wealth  made  through 

the  rise  of  real  estate,  while  Stewart  had  made  his  money  in 

legitimate  trade. 

A.  T.  Stewart  was  worth  forty  million  dollars. 

This  vast  estate  was  mostly  frittered  away,  honey-combed 

and  moth-eaten,  by  hungry  attorneys. 

The  business  was  carried  on  by  Hessians  who  worked  both 

ends  against  the  middle,  and  let  the  estate  foot  the  deficits. 

^  A.  T.  Stewart  had  a  genius  for  trade,  but  he  had  no  gift 

for  giving.  The  world  needs  a  school  for  millionaires,  so 

that,  since  they  can  not  take  their  millions  with  them,  they 

can  learn  to  leave  their  money  wisely  and  well. 

After  an  up-and-down — mostly  down — career  of  a  decade, 

the  Business  Palace  was  bought  by  John  Wanamaker,  who 

no  doubt  felt  a  thrill  of  delight  on  coming  into  possession 

of  a  business  that  years  before  had  been  to  him  an  inspiration. 

^  Mr.  Wanamaker  placed  his  trusted  lieutenant,  that  very 

able  man,  Robert  C.  Ogden,  in  charge. 

The  scattered  forces  were  reformed,  and  new  goods,  new 

methods  and  live  men  brought  the  buyers  back,  penitent. 

Again,  and  almost  instantly,  the  Business  Palace  became 

a  center  of  light  and  education,  and  the  splendid  aisles  that 

a  generation  before  had  known  the  tread  of  the  best  people 

of  Manhattan,  again  felt  their  step. 

When  Stewart  built  the  Business  Palace,  people  said,  **0h, 

it  is  too  far  uptown — nobody  will  go  there." 

But  they  were  wrong. 

117 


A.  T.  STEWART 

When  John  Wanamaker  moved  in,  many  said,  **0h,  it  's 
beautiful — but  you  know,  it  is  too  far  down  town — nobody 
will  go  there." 

And  these  were  as  wrong  as  the  first. 

"Where  McGinty  sits  is  the  head  of  the  table."  The  trade 
siphoned  itself  thither  under  the  magic  name  of  Wanamaker 
as  though  the  shade  of  A.  T.  Stewart  had  been  summoned 
from  its  confines  in  the  Isles  of  Death. 
In  Stewart's  day  no  sign  had  been  placed  on  the  building. 
He  said,  ** Everybody  will  know  it  is  A.  T.  Stewart's!"  And 
they  did.  After  his  death  the  place  was  plastered  with  signs 
that  called  in  throaty  falsetto  at  the  passer-by,  like  eager 
salesmen  on  the  Midway  who  try  to  entice  people  to  enter. 
The  new  management  took  all  these  signs  down,  and  by 
the  main  entrance  placed  a  modest  tablet  carrying  this 
inscription ; 

John  Wanamaker 
Successor  to 
A.  T.  Stewart 

It  was  a  comment  so  subtle  that  it  took  New  York  a  year 
to  awaken  to  its  flavor  of  tincture  of  iron. 
That  little  sign  reminds  one  of  how  once  Disraeli  was 
dining  with  an  American  and  two  other  Englishmen.  In 
the  course  of  the  conversation  the  American  proudly  let 
slip  the  information  that  he  traced  a  pedigree  to  parents 
who  came  to  America  in  the  Mayflower. 
One   of   the   Englishmen    here    coughed,    and    vouchsafed 
the  fact  that  he  traced  a  lineage  to  Oliver  Cromwell. 
ii8 


A.  T.  STEWART 

A  little  pause  followed,  and  the  other  guest  spat,  muzzled 
his  modesty,  and  said  he  traced  to  William  the  Conqueror. 
^  Disraeli,  with  great  deliberation,  made  a  hieroglyphic  on 
the  table-cloth  with  his  fork  and  said,  "And  I  trace  a 
pedigree  to  Moses,  who  walked  and  talked  with  God  on 
Mount  Sinai,  fifteen  centuries  before  the  birth  of  Christ." 
John  Wanamaker  leaped  the  gulf  of  twenty  years  and 
traced  direct  to  A.  T.  Stewart,  as  well  he  might,  for  it  was 
Stewart's  achievement  that  had  first  fired  his  imagination 
to  do  and  become. 

A.  T.  Stewart  was  the  greatest  merchant  of  his  time.  And 
John  Wanamaker  has  been  not  only  a  great  merchant,  but  a 
teacher  of  merchants.  And  the  John  Wanamaker  Stores 
now  form  a  High  School  of  economic  industrialism. 
John  Wanamaker  is  still  teaching,  tapping  new  reservoirs 
of  power  as  the  swift-changing  seasons  pass.  As  a  preacher 
and  a  teacher  he  has  surely  surpassed  the  versatile  Stewart. 
^  The  Stewart  Business  Palace  proved  too  small  to 
accommodate  the  tide  of  trade  that  so  soon  set  in  the 
Wanamaker  direction  J^  Adjoining  the  Stewart  store 
another  Business  Palace  has  been  built,  towering  far 
above  its  sturdy  little  parent.  The  New  Wanamaker  Store 
is  sixteen  stories  high.  The  Stewart  store  is  five  stories, 
which  Peter  Cooper  said  was  as  high  as  it  was  possible 
to  build  with  safety. 

A.  T.  Stewart  left  no  successor  after  the  flesh ;  but  Rodman 
Wanamaker,  the  son  of  John  Wanamaker,  is  the  practical 
working  manager  of  the  Philadelphia  Wanamaker  Stores 

119 


A.         T.  STEWART 

and  will  be  his  father's  successor  in  all  his  business. 
^  I  am  glad  to  discover  Rodman  Wanamaker  and  give  him 
to  the  world.  He  has  been  so  thrown  into  the  shadow  by 
his  picturesque  and  many-sided  father  that  the  world 
knows  little  or  nothing  of  him  ^  And  this  is  just  what 
Rodman  Wanamaker  has  desired.  My  idea  is  that  he 
should  now  walk  out  into  the  lime-light  ^  Rodman 
Wanamaker  is  a  man  of,  say,  forty — strong,  earnest, 
capable,  poised,  competent.  He  is  so  big  that  he  asks  for 
no  recognition — no  applause — no  bouquets.  His  name 
has  neither  been  bulletined  on  Wall  Street  nor  featured 
in  the  Police  Gazette  ^  He  does  his  work  and  holds  his 
peace.  He  is  that  rare  being,  an  economist  who  is  also 
an  educator.  Stewart  was  a  great  man,  but  in  his  love  for 
the  race  Rodman  Wanamaker  is  a  greater  one. 
Of  course,  there  are  very  many  able  men  at  the  head  of 
the  Wanamaker  departments ;  but  superb  skill  as  a  general 
is  shown  in  the  selection  and  management  of  these  marshals. 
^  John  Wanamaker  built  on  the  methods  of  A.  T.  Stewart. 
He  invented  that  water-tight  compartment  plan  of  business 
known  as  the  Department  Store.  He  banked  all  and  won 
on  the  One-Price  System.  ^  But  in  the  final  evolution  of  the 
Wanamaker  business  let  a  modicum  of  the  credit  go  to  that 
tireless  worker  of  whom  the  world  sees  and  knows  so  little — 
Rodman  Wanamaker,  educator,  economist,  conservator  and 
humanist.  ^  Napoleon  won  his  battles  with  his  marshals. 
But  behind  the  marshals  was  the  master  mind.  His  restless 
spirit  animated  theirs. 

120 


A.  T.  STEWART 

Napoleon   produced   in   his   army  a  something  which   he 

called  an  "Esprit  de  Corps,"  and  thereby  did  he  prove 

his  greatness. 

Without  this  Esprit  de  Corps,  he  said,  he  would  have  been 

defeated  from  the  first ;  and  when  at  last  he  met  his  Waterloo 

it  was  because  the  Esprit  de  Corps  was  lacking.  A  grand 

game  of  grab  and  graft  had  begun;  it  was  a  clutch  for 

personal    perquisites   and   honors.    The    eagles    of   France 

were  secondary. 

In  all  big  institutions  that  win  their  way  to  success  there 

must  be  an  Esprit  de  Corps — a  oneness  of  aim,  intent, 

desire  and  ambition. 

At  John  Wanamaker's  there  is  an  animating  spirit  which 

I  call  Esprit  de  Store! 

The  place  is  permeated  with  a  motive — it  has  a  soul.  This 

motive  is  to  serve  the  buyer — to  anticipate  his  needs,  and 

supply  him  the  necessary  and  beautiful  things  of  life  at 

the  lowest  possible  margin  of  profit. 

There  seems  to  be  a  fine,  friendly  relation  between  salesmen 

and  customers  which  constitutes  a  sort  of  Big  Wanamaker 

Family  Ji>  Jt> 

It  is  part  of  this  Esprit  de  Store  to  speak  well  of  everybody, 

if  you  mention  him  at  all.  Wanamaker  clerks  speak  no  ill 

of  competitors.  They  speak  well  of  each  other,  and  think 

well  of  each  other. 

Another  element  in  this  Esprit  de  Store  is  a  continual  restless 

desire  to  do  it  better! 

Nothing  is  ever  quite  good  enough. 

121 


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The  entire  spirit  of  the  place  works  toward  eliminating  waste 
motion.  I  find  here  no  bigwig  bosses — no  costly  figure-heads 
— no  fuss  and  feathers  ^  Everybody  works  and  all  work 
cheerily  jl^  ^ 


0  succeed  in  business  today  it  is 
not  enough  that  you  should  look 
out  for  Number  One:  you  must 
also  look  out  for  Number  Two. 
that  is,  you  must  consider  the 
needs  of  the  buyer  and  make  his 
interests  your  own. 
To  sell  a  person  something  he 
does  not  want,  or  to  sell  him 
something  at  a  price  above  its 
actual  value,  is  a  calamity — for 
the  seller. 

Business  is  built  on  confidence.  We  make  our  money  out 
of  our  friends — our  enemies  will  not  trade  with  us. 
In  law  the  buyer  and  the  seller  are  supposed  to  be  people 
with  equal  opportunity  to  judge  of  an  article  and  pass  on 
its  value. 

Hence  there  is  a  legal  maxim.  Caveat  emptor — **Let  the 
buyer  beware" — and  this  provides  that  when  an  article 
is  once  purchased  and  passes  into  the  possession  of  the 

122 


A.  T.  STEWART 

buyer  it  is  his,  and  he  has  no  redress  for  short  weight, 
count  or  inferior  quality. 

Behind  that  legal  Latin  maxim,  Caveat  Emptor,  the 
merchant  stood  for  centuries,  safely  entrenched. 
It  was  about  Eighteen  Hundred  Sixty-five  that  it  came 
to  John  Wanamaker,  a  young  merchant  just  starting 
business  in  Philadelphia,  that  the  law  is  wrong  in  assuming 
that  buyer  and  seller  stand  on  a  parity,  and  have  an  equal 
opportunity  for  judging  of  values.  The  dealer  is  a  specialist, 
while  the  buyer,  being  a  consumer  of  a  great  number  of 
different  things,  has  only  a  general  knowledge,  at  best  jt 
The  person  with  only  a  general  idea  as  to  values,  pitted 
against  a  trained  specialist,  is  at  a  great  disadvantage. 
^  Therefore,  to  be  on  ethical  ground  the  seller  must  be 
the  friend  of  the  buyer — not  his  antagonist.  For  a  seller 
to  regard  the  buyer  as  his  prey  is  worse  than  non-ethical 
— it  is  immoral — a  violation  of  the  Golden  Rule. 
Moreover,  it  is  a  poor  business  policy. 
You  must  treat  people  so  they  will  come  back. 
There  is  no  advertisement  equal  to  a  pleased  customer. 
^  These  things  came  to  the  young  man,  John  Wanamaker, 
with  a  great  throb  and  thrill.  Many  had  taken  this  view, 
but  where  was  the  merchant  who  had  ever  thought  it  possible 
to  do  a  big  retail  business  on  this  basis? 
And  at  once  John  Wanamaker  put  his  theories  into  exe- 
cution, and  on  them  his  business  was  founded.  The  One-Price 
System — all  goods  marked  in  plain  figures — and  money  back 
if  not  satisfied,  these  things  were  to  revolutionize  the  retail 

123 


A.  T.  STEWART 

trade  of  the  world.  ^The  plan  worked — it  paid — the  John 
Wanamaker  business  increased — and  a  few  merchants  all 
over  the  country  began  to  adopt  the  plan. 
The  second  great  epoch  in  the  life  of  John  Wanamaker  was 
when  he  inaugurated  the  great  store  in  Philadelphia  covering 
a  block,  in  Eighteen  Hundred  Seventy-six,  which  was  known 
as  the  Grand  Depot  because  it  was  lodged  in  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Freight  Sheds.  This   great  business  innovation  was 
actually  a  rival  of  the  Centennial  Exposition. 
Indeed,  many  merchants  from  all  over  America  went  to 
Philadelphia  to  see  the  great  store  of  John  Wanamaker, 
and  incidentally  they  attended  the  Exposition. 
The  third  great  epoch  in  the  life  of  John  Wanamaker  was 
when  he  purchased  the  A.  T.  Stewart  "Palace  of  Business'* 
at  Broadway  and^  Tenth  Street,  New  York  City. 
Now  comes  the  fourth  great  epoch  in  the  life  of  this  tireless 
and  restless  man:  He  has  transformed  the  A.  T.  Stewart 
Palace   of   Business   and   its   adjoining   new   sixteen-story 
building  into  a  Business  Exposition,  that  really  outstrips 
that  epoch-maker,  the  Centennial  Exposition. 
The  A.  T.  Stewart  building  is  a  "Woman's  Store,"  devoted 
to  woman's  wants. 

The  first  floor  of  the  new  building  is  a  "Man's  Store."  The 
remaining  fifteen  stories  of  the  new  building  are  "Galleries, " 
wherein  are  displayed  the  wonders  of  the  loom,  mine,  forest, 
and  farm,  from  every  corner  of  the  globe,  with  all  that  talent, 
skill  and  human  ingenuity  can  add  or  invent,  in  bronze, 
marble,  canvas,  fabric  or  textile. 
124 


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Here  is  shown  all  that  civilization  demands  for  its  comfort, 
necessity,  luxury  or  delectation.  The  "Department  Store"  has 
gone  with  the  things  that  were,  or  lingers  on  the  outskirts. 
The  Galleries  of  Art  and  Industry  are  here. 
This  is  the  new  John  Wanamaker  Idea — it  is  the  crowning 
achievement  of  a  great  and  useful  life.  However,  I  believe  it 
is  not  the  last  innovation,  for  the  Wanamaker  spirit  of  "noble 
discontent"  seems  perennial. 

He  who  has  not  seen  this  new  educational  departure 
represented  by  the  New  York  Wanamaker  Exposition, 
does  not  know  his  America;  he  is  moored  to  the  past, 
and  is  not  afloat  and  free  upon  the  tide  of  the  times  jt 
Are  the  items  and  articles  on  exhibition  for  sale?  Yes,  and 
all  marked  in  plain  figures,  with  the  guaranty  of  your  money 
back  if  not  satisfied.  But  you  are  not  importuned  to  buy  jt 
The  place  is  an  unforgettable  object-lesson  for  young  and 
old  in  what  man  hath  wrought. 

John  Wanamaker,  of  all  men  in  America,  seems  to  know 
that  to  stand  still  is  to  retreat.  For  over  forty  years  he  has 
led  the  vanguard  of  the  business  world. 
He  has  been  a  teacher  of  merchants.  His  insight,  initiative, 
originality,  and  prophetic  judgment  have  set  the  retailers 
of  the  world  a  pace.  Many  have  learned  much  from  him, 
and  all  have  been  influenced  by  him.  Whether  they  knew 
it  or  not,  and  whether  they  would  acknowledge  it  if  they 
did  know  it,  matters  little. 

Professor  Zueblin  says  of  William  Morris:  "Not  a  well- 
furnished  house  in  Christendom,  but  that  shows  the  influence 


T  . 


W 


of  his  good  taste  and  his  gracious  ideas  of  economy,  harmony 
and  honesty  in  home  decoration.  ** 

Likewise,  we  can  truthfully  say  that  there  is  not  a  successful 
retail  store  in  America  that  does  not  show  the  influence  of 
A.  T.  Stewart  and  his  legitimate  successor,John  Wanamaker. 


126 


Elbert  Hubbard  will  give  his  New  Lecture 
UNTAPPED  RESERVOIRS  as  follows 

INDIANAPOLIS,  IND .— The  Propylaeum, 
Wednesday  evening,  Nov.  3d,  eight  o'clock. 

ST.  LOUIS,  MO.— Memorial  Hall,  Friday 
evening,  Nov.  5th,  eight  o'clock.  Seats  on 
sale  at  Bollman  Bros.'  Music  Store. 

CLEVELAND,  O.— Saturday  evening,  Nov. 
6th,  eight  o'clock. 

CHICAGO,  ILL.— Studebaker  Theater,  Sun- 
day afternoon^  Nov.  14th,  three  o'clock. 
Seats  on  sale  at  Box  Office. 

NEW  YORK  CITY— Cooper  Union,  Thurs= 
tday  evening,  Nov.  18th,  eight  o'clock.  Seats 
^on  sale  at  John  Wanamaker's  Book  Store. 

YOUNGSTOWN,  O.— Elks  Hall,  Monday 
evening,  Nov.  22d,  eight  o'clock. 

PITTSBURGH,  PA.— Lecture  Hall,  Carnegie 
Library  Building,  East  End,  Tuesday  even= 
ing,  Nov.  23d,  eight  o'clock. 

PHILADELPHIA,  PA.— Witherspoon  Hall, 
Thursday  evening,  Nov.  25th,  eight  o'clock. 
Seats  on  sale  at  John  Wanamaker's. 

BOSTON,  MASS.— Chickering  Hall,  Thurs- 
day evening,  Dec.  9th,  eight  o'clock.  Seats 
on  sale  at  Box  Office. 


Jf  or  gour  JBoofefil 


^OR  the  next  few  months  our  Bindery  will  be  able  to  give  Atten- 
-J'  tion  to  Special  Commissions.  Look  to  your  Library.  Should  some  o  f 
your  books  be  worn  and  smudged  with  the  thumb-prints  of  Time  or 
battered  with  the  perennial  disrespect  of  the  Book-Borrower  (May 
Caxton  grill  his  Soul!),  send  them  to  us.  Mr.  Kinder  and  his  pupils 
will  frock  them  anew  in  a  style  which  will  make  your  Emerald  ency- 
clopedia turn  green  with  envy.  T^The  Roycrofters  can  rebind  a  volume 
any  size  in  boards,  limp  leather,  Alicia,  buckram,  levant  or  modeled 
leather.  Simply  mail  us  the  books  with  a  note  setting  forth  your 
wishes.  The  work-will  be  De  Luxe,  and  the  cost  mildly  appropriate. 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora.  Erie  County,  New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


A  QUERY 

By  Leonard  Nichols 

Thoreau,  long  since  dead  and  gone. 
In  name  and  fame  still  liveth  on. 
'Twas  he,  when  at  the  evening  meal 
Asked  for  which  dish  he  seemed  to  feel 
A  preference,  in  drawling  answer  said. 
Though  many  viands  there  were  spread — 

"The  nearest." 
Long  years  a  query  's  pestered  me; 
'Tis  this:  Would  Henry  David  Thoreau,  he, 
If  asked  which  pretty  Concord  miss 
Of  his  acquaintance  he  would  kiss. 
Have  drawled  in  answer  as  before. 
In  Emersonian  days  of  yore, 

"The  nearest"? 


When  You  Write  a  Letter 

bear  in  mind  that  the  recipient  probably  gets 
three  or  four  pieces  of  mail  at  once.  Depend  on 
it,  a  man  or  woman  will  alw^ays  open  the  most 
promising-looking  envelope  first.  The  interest  in 
subsequent  letters  is  then  disconcerted  by  the 
message  of  the  one  already  read.  Letter  Number 
One  commands  the  Unscattered  Attention  of  the 
Reader.  If  your  letter  is  written  on 

Roycroft   Stationery 

be  sure  that  it  will  take  precedence  over  the  picture 
post-card,  the  local  paper,  the  price-list  asked  for 
and  the  customary  incidental  mail.  QThe  Roycroft 
letter  lends  dignity  to  the  language  and  inspires 
consideration — what  the  user  has  to  say  is  closely 
barkened.  Here  is  a  most  interesting  Offer: 
Five  hundred  sheets  with  envelope  affinities, 
your  name  and  whereabouts  printed  Roycroftie 
in  appropriate  shades. 

Select  your  stock  and  send  Copy  Suggestions 
with  Order. 


White  Italian  hand-made,  Roycroft  Water-mark 
Rhododendron  hand-made,  Roycroft  Water-mark 
Cream  Vellum  Alexandra  Japan         -         _         _ 
Roycroft  Goldenrod  _____ 


$10.00 
10.00 
10.00 
10.00 


The  Roycrofters,  East  Aurora,  New  York 


MODELED  MOSTLY 
FOR    MALE    MAN 


Modeled' Leather  Match-Safe,  made  in  mini- 
ature of  Cigar- Case.  A  very  snug  little  vest-pocket 
companion.  Pine- motif  design    Price  -  $  .50 

Modeled' Leather  Cigar-Case,  A  very  Artistic 
pocket  convenience  in  bronze  Modeled  Leather. 
Will  hold  four  fat  perfectos,  any  color.  Decorated 
with  Pine-Cone  design  on  obverse.  Price      -     $3.00 

Modeled-Leat her  Photo- Case,  A  very  attractive 
pocket  photograph-folder  ^  Will  take  two  pictures 
4x6  1-2.  An  Ideal  arrangement  for  carrying  or  keep- 
ing in  sight  two  views  of  the  same  lady.  Silk-lined, 
with  Conventional  Design — sewed  edges.  Price,  $3.00 

Modeled- Leather  Desk-Set,  Large  mat  with 
hand- tooled  corners .  Also,  a  blotting-pad  and  pen- wiper 
thatched  to  chamois  with  leather  back.  Though  an 
Occult  Green  in  color,  it  transforms  a  desk  like  Black 
Art.  18x23  inches.  Price  -         -         -  $3.00 

Modeled' Leather  Bill'Fold  with  {our  additional 
card  and  clipping  compartments,  original  hand- wrought 
design.  Silk-lined  with  sewed   edges.   Price,  $5.00 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


HE 


measure 


of  a  master 


is  his 


success 


in  bringing  all  men 
round  to  his  opinion 
twenty  years  later 


— Emerson 


■  v>«  J>l|g-Tg 


T  is  one  of 
the  most 
beautiful 


compensa- 


tions of  life  that  no 
man  can  sincerely  try 
to  help  another  with- 
out helping  himself 


Vol.  25 


NOVEMBER,  MCMIX 


No.  5 


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TO  THF  HQMg^l3ff 


H.  H     RO 


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OOD  Roads, 
Flowers, 
Parks,  Bet- 


ter Schools, 
Trees,  Pure 
Water,  Fresh  Air, 
Sunshine  and  Work 
for  Everybody— these 
things,  to  me,  are 

^Gligion— Robert  Collyer 


<  tered  at  the  poet-offlce  ki  Blast  Aurora,  New  York,  for  transmission  as  seoond-claas  matter. 
Copyright,  1909,  by  Klbert  Hubbard,  Editor  and  Publwh«-. 


^0  Z^t  Jfaitfiful 

3N  certain  Universities  there  is  what  is  known  as  the 
Sabbatical  Year.  That  is  to  say,  one  year  in  seven  is 
given  to  the  teacher  or  professor  as  his  own:  this 
for  the  good  of  himself — and  the  school. 
€fMr.  Hubbard  has  written  one  Little  Journey  a 
month  for  fifteen  years,  or  in  all  One  Hundred  Eighty  of 
these  biographies  in  tabloid. 

Qlt  is  believed,  judging  from  the  continued  sale,  and  the 
gradually  growing  demand  from  High  Schools,  Colleges 
and  Libraries,  that  Little  Journeys  will  have  a  permanent 
place  in  the  world's  literature. 

^Realizing  the  danger  of  the  human  mind  to  run  in 
grooves,  and  the  tendency  of  a  writer  to  do  mental  goose- 
step,  Mr.  Hubbard  proposes  to  take  the  year  Nineteen 
Hundred  Ten  as  a  Sabbatical  Year,  for  the  good  of  him- 
self— and  his  readers. 

qMr.  Hubbard  feels  that  a  leisurely  tour  of  Europe,  amid 
the  sights  and  scenes  of  places  made  sacred  by  the  presence 
of  good  men  and  great — eke  women,  withal — will  obviate 
the  risk  of  a  decline  of  raw  stock  and  recharge  his  cosmic 
carbureter. 

QAnd  this  to  the  end  that  all  those  dear  friends,  whose 
love  and  loyalty  Mr.  Hubbard  so  prizes  and  ever  hopes  that 
he  may  merit,  may  not  have  to  drowse  over  pages  poppy- 
strewn  with  the  trite,  sprinkled  with  the  commonplace,  and 
punctured  by  the  obvious. 

^Mr.    Hubbard  feels   very  sure    that    he    is  in    sight    of 
Untapped  Reservoirs,  and  the  refined  product  of  these  he 
expects  to  present  to  the  Faithful  in  the  years  to  come. 
^The  Philistine  and  The  Fra  will  be  continued 
as  heretofore.  These  being  mostly  comments  on 
the  Passing  Show  can  be  written  anywhere, 
amid  the  rush  and  throng,  the  quiet  of  country 
by-roads,  or  those  places  where  the  spirit  of  art 
lingers.  The  intent  is  to  make  these  Magazines 
more  worthy  of  that  select  clientele  which  has 
made  them  possible,  than  ever  before.  flMay  all 
the   good  that  the  Loving  deserve  be  theirs  ! 


One  Dollar  for  All! 


1— THE  PHILISTINE  MAGAZINE 

for  one  Year,  as  issued 

2— TWELVE  BACK  NUMBERS 
OF  THE  PHILISTINJE 

To  be  read  and  given  away  as  tracts  to  the  unwashed 
and  unregenerate 

3— AN  AUTOGRAPHED  ETCHING 
OF  ERA  ELBERTUS 

on  Japan  Vellum,  by  Gaspard.  Suitable  for  Framing 

All  for  One  Dollar! 


THE  PHILISTINE,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 

Enclosed  find  ONE  DOLLAR,  and  I  request  you|[to  send 
me  THE  PHILISTINE  Magazine  for  One  Year,  and  the 
twelve  Back  Numbers  of  THE  PHILISTINE,  also  the  Etching 
of  Fra  Elbertus,  by  Gaspard,  at  once,  as  your  Special  Offer. 


Date 

Remit  a  One-Dollar  Bill  by  mail.  The  United  States  mails  are  safe 
Registered  Letters,  Post-Office  Orders  and  Bank-Drafts  are  risky 

Extra  Postage:  to  Canada,  Twelve  Cents;  to  Europe,  Twenty-four  Cents. 


Offer    Number    Ten 

TWO    DOLLARS    FOR    ALL! 

1— THE     FRA     MAGAZINE    for    One     Year 
2— THE     DOCTORS     by     FRA     ELBERTUS 

This  is  Mr.  Hubbard's  Latest  Book.  Bound  in  boards 

3— ELBERT  HUBBARD'S   BUSINESS  LIBRARY 

Consisting  of  the  following  paper-bound  booklets  : 

A  Message  to  Garcia  The  "Cigarettist 

The  Boy  from  Missouri  Valley  Pasteboard  Proclivities 

How  I  Found  My  Brother  The  Roycroft  Shop— A  His- 
Helpful  Hints  for   Business  tory 

Helpers  The  Divine  in  Man 

Get  Out  or  Get  In  Line  Hubbard -Albertson  Debate 

4— AN  AUTOGRAPHED  ETCHING  of  Era  Elbertus 
by  Schneider  on  Japan  Paper,  Suitable  for  Framing 

5— THE      ROYCROFT      MOTTO-BOOK 

ALL    FOR    TWO    DOLLARS! 

THE  ROYCROFTERS 

East  Aurora,  New  York 
FRIENDS:— I  enclose  TWO  DOLLARS  and  accept  your 
Offer  Number  Ten.  So  send  me  THE  FRA  Magazine  and  all 
the  emoluments  and  perquisites  as  per  your  offer. 

Name 

Address -.  - 

Date 

Extra  Postage :  to  Canada,  Fojrty  Cents  ;  to  Europe,  Sixty  Cents 


Hand-Hammered  Copper 

QTo  hammer  from  a  copper  sheet  forms  of  beauty 

requires    Patience,    an    Eye    for    Proportion,  and    a 

Fine  Appreciation  of  Artistic  Values.  One  blow  too 

many — or  too  few — and  your  Tray  is  a  jagg  of  metal, 

and  your  Bowl  a  caveman's  cup. 

QRoycroft   Hand-Hammered   Copper  is  the   Golden 

Mean   of  Hand-Craft   ^    Each    piece    has    balance, 

coloring,  finish. 

QNo    matter    how    much    we    make,    our   stock   is 

always  low. 

CJFor  the  present,  we  have  on   sale   the    following: 

Nut-Sets $15.00  up 

Nut-Bowls     .       .                         3.00  up 

Pin-Trays 1.00  up 

Ash-Trays    .       .                      .    1.00  up 
Desk-Trays       ....       1.00  up 
Belt-Buckles         ....    1.00  up 
Paper- Knives    .                               1.00  up 

((Special   Articles  Made    to   Order 
THE    ROYCROFTERS 

EAST  AURORA.   ERIE  COUNTY,   NEW   YORK 

liooffiam 


TO  THh  HOME^T^ 


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H.  H.  ROGERS 


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OUCCESS  is  rooted  in  reciprocity.  He  who  does  not  benefit   the 
**^  world  is   headed   for   bankruptcy    on    the   high-speed   clutch. 

— H.  H.  ROGERS 


H.     H.     ROGERS 


LITTLE    JOURNEYS 


NE  proof  that  H.  H.  Rogers  was 
a  personage  and  not  a  person  lies 
in  the  fact  that  he  was  seldom 
mentioned  in  moderate  language. 
Lawson  passed  him  a  few  choice 
tributes;  Ida  Tarbell  tarred  him 
with  her  literary  stick ;  Upton  Sin- 
clair declared  he  was  this  and  that ; 
Prof.  Herren  averred  that  he  bore 
no  likeness  to  Leo  Tolstoy, — and, 
he  might  have  added,  neither  did 
he  resemble  Francis  of  Assisi  or 
Simeon  Stylites.  Those  who  did  not  like  him  usually  pictured 
him  by  recounting  what  he  was  not. 

My  endeavor  in  this  sketch  will  be  simply  to  tell  what  he  was. 
fl  Henry  Huddleston  Rogers  was  a  very  human  individual. 
He  was  born  at  the  village  of  Fairhaven,  Massachusetts,  in 
the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Forty.  He  died  in  New  York 
City  in  Nineteen  Hundred  and  Nine— in  his  seventieth  year. 
He  was  the  typical  American,  and  his  career  was  the  ideal 
one  to  which  we  are  always  pointing  our  growing  youth.  His 
fault,  if  fault  it  be,  was  that  he  succeeded  too  well.  Success  is 
a  hard  thing  to  forgive.  Personality  repels  as  well  as  attracts. 
^  The  life  of  H.  H.  Rogers  was  the  complete  American 
romance.  He  lived  the  part — and  he  looked  it.  He  did  not 
require  a  make-up.  The  sub-cortex  was  not  for  him,  and 
even  the  liars  never  dared  to  say  he  was  a  hypocrite. 
H.  H.  Rogers  had  personality.  Men  turned  to  gaze  at  him  on 
the  street ;  women  glanced,  and  then  hastily  looked,  unneces- 

127 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

sarily  hard,  the  other  way ;  children  stared.  ^  The  man  was 
tall,  lithe,  strong,  graceful,  commanding.  His  jaw  was  the 
jaw  of  courage ;  his  chin  meant  purpose ;  his  nose  symboled 
intellect,  poise  and  power;  his  brow  spelled  brain. 
He  was  a  handsome  man,  and  he  was  not  wholly  unaware  of 
the  fact.  In  him  was  the  pride  of  the  North  American  Indian, 
and  a  little  of  the  reserve  of  the  savage.  His  silence  was 
always  eloquent,  and  in  it  was  neither  stupidity  nor  vacuity. 
With  friends  he  was  witty,  affable,  generous,  lovable. 
In  business  negotiation  he  was  rapid,  direct,  incisive;  or 
smooth,  plausible  and  convincing — all  depending  upon  the 
man  with  whom  he  was  dealing.  He  often  did  to  others  what 
they  were  trying  to  do  to  him,  and  he  did  it  first.  He  had  the 
splendid  ability  to  say  **No**  when  he  should,  a  thing  many 
good  men  can  not  do.  At  such  times  his  mouth  would  shut 
like  a  steel  trap  and  his  blue  eyes  would  send  the  thermometer 
below  zero.  No  one  could  play  horse  with  H.  H.  Rogers.  He, 
himself,  was  always  in  the  saddle. 

The  power  of  the  man  was  more  manifest  with  men  than  with 
women,  yet  he  was  always  admired  by  women,  but  more  on 
account  of  his  austerity  than  his  effort  to  please.  He  was  not 
given  to  flattery;  yet  he  was  quick  to  commend.  He  had  in 
him  something  of  the  dash  that  existed  when  knighthood 
was  in  flower.  He  dressed  well,  because  everything  he  did, 
he  did  well.  But  he  hated  Beau  Brummel.  Dress  to  him  was 
only  an  incident,  not  an  end.  He  had  taste,  a  sense  of  pro- 
portion, an  appreciation  of  color,  a  just  regard  for  form.  To 
the  great  of  the  earth,  H.  H.  Rogers  never  bowed  the  knee. 
He  never  shimned  an  encounter,  save  with  weakness,  greed 
128 


H,  H.  ROGERS 

and  stupidity.  He  met  every  difficulty,  every  obstacle,  unafraid 
and  unabashed.  Even  death  to  him  was  only  a  passing  event 
— death  for  him  had  no  sting,  nor  the  grave  a  victory. 
He  prepared  for  his  passing,  looking  after  every  detail,  as 
he  had  planned  trips  to  Europe.  Jauntily,  jokingly,  bravely, 
tremendously  busy,  keenly  alive  to  beauty  and  friendship, 
deciding   great  issues   offhand,   facing  friend   or  foe,   the 
moments  of  relaxation  chinked  in  with  religious  emotion 
and  a  glowing  love  for  humanity — so  he  lived,  and  so  he  died. 
qAn  executive  has  been  described  as  a  man  who  decides 
quickly,  and  is  sometimes  right. 
H.  H.  Rogers  was  the  ideal  executive. 
He  did  not  decide  until  the  evidence  was  all  in ;  he  listened, 
weighed,  sifted,  sorted  and  then  decided. 
And  when  his  decision  was  made  the  case  was  closed. 
To  explain  matters  to  the  mediocre  is  to  have  your  enthusiasm 
evaporate  into  space.  To  explain  to  your  own  familiar  friend 
in  order  to  get  the  problem  crystallized  in  your  own  mind  is 
quite  another  matter.  H.  H.  Rogers  did  both.  When  he  ex- 
plained his  plans  to  another,  it  was  always  quite  certain  that 
the  question  was  still  incubating  in  his  own  brain.  When 
once  the  matter  was  clear  to  himself,  he  went  ahead,  and 
got  the  thing  done.  Thus  did  he  exemplify  the  working  motto 
of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jowett,  Master  of  Baliol,  "Get  the  thing  done 
and  let  them  howl." 

Big  men,  who  are  doing  big  things  that  have  never  been 
done  before,  act  on  this  basis,  otherwise  they  would  be  ironed 
out  to  the  average,  and  their  dreams  would  evaporate  like 
the  morning  mist.  H.  H.  Rogers  made  his  dreams  come  true. 

129 


H    • 


E 


IVE  me  neither  poverty  nor 
riches,"  said  the  philosopher. 
The  parents  of  H.  H.  Rogers  were 
neither  rich  nor  poor.  They  had 
enough,  but  there  was  never  a  sur- 
feit. They  were  of  straight  New 
England  stock.  Of  his  four  great- 
grandfathers, three  had  fought  in 
the  Revolutionary  War. 
According  to  Thomas  Carlyle, 
respectable  people  were  those  who 
kept  a  gig.  In  some  towns  the 
credential  is  that  the  family  shall  employ  a  ** hired  girl."  In 
Fairhaven  the  condition  was  that  you  should  have  a  washer- 
woman one  day  in  the  week.  The  soapy  wash-water  was 
saved  for  scrubbing  purposes — for  this  was  in  Massachusetts 
— and  if  the  man  of  the  house  occasionally  smoked  a  pipe  he 
was  requested  to  blow  the  smoke  onto  the  plants  in  the 
South  windows,  so  as  to  kill  the  vermin.  Nothing  was  wasted. 
^  The  child  born  into  such  a  family  where  industry  and 
economy  are  prized,  unless  he  is  a  mental  defective  and  a 
physical  cripple,  will  be  sure  to  thrive. 
The  father  had  made  one  trip  in  a  whaler.  He  was  gone  three 
years  and  got  a  one-hundred-and-forty-seventh  part  of  the 
catch.  The  oil  market  was  on  a  slump,  and  so  the  net  result 
for  the  father  of  a  millionaire-to-be,  was  ninety-five  dollars 
and  twenty  cents.  This  happy  father  was  a  grocer,  and  later 
a  clerk  to  a  broker  in  whale-oil.  Pater  had  the  New  England 
virtues  to  such  a  degree  that  they  kept  him  poor.  He  was 
130 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

cautious,  plus.  ^  To  make,  you  have  to  spend ;  to  grow  a  crop 
you  have  to  plant  the  seed.  Here  *s  where  you  plunge — it  is  a 
gamble,  a  bet  on  the  seed  versus  the  eternal  cussedness  of 
things.  It  *s  you  against  the  chances  of  a  crop. 
If  the  drought  comes,  or  the  flood,  or  the  chintz-bug,  or  the 
brown-tailed  moth,  you  may  find  yourself  floundering  in  the 
mulligatawney. 

Aside  from  that  one  cruise  to  the  whaling-grounds,  Rogers 
Pere  played  the  game  of  life  near  home  and  close  to  shore. 
^  The  easy  ways  of  the  villagers  are  shown  by  a  story  Mr. 
Rogers  used  to  tell  about  a  good  neighbor  of  his — a  second 
mate  on  a  whaler.  The  bark  was  weighing  anchor  and  about 
to  sail.  The  worthy  mate  tarried  at  a  barroom  over  in  New 
Bedford.  ** Ain't  you  going  home  to  kiss  your  wife  good-by?" 
some  one  asked.  flAnd  the  answer  was:  ** What's  the  use? 
— I  'm  only  going  to  be  gone  two  years. " 
Half  of  Fairhaven  was  made  up  of  fishermen,  and  the  rest 
were  widows  and  the  usual  village  contingent.  The  widows 
were  the  washerwomen. 

Those  who  had  the  price  hired  a  washerwoman  one  day  in 
the  week.  This  was  not  so  much  because  the  mother  herself 
could  not  do  the  work,  as  it  was  to  give  work  to  the  needy 
and  prove  the  Jeffersonian  idea  of  equality.  The  wash-lady 
was  always  seated  with  the  family  at  table,  and  beside  her 
wage  was  presented  with  a  pie,  a  pumpkin,  or  some  outgrown 
garment.  Thus  were  the  Christian  virtues  liberated. 
Where  the  gray  mare  is  the  better  horse,  her  mate  always 
lets  up  a  bit  on  his  whiflaetree  and  she  draws  most  of  the  load. 
^  It  was  so  here. 

131 


The  mother  planned  for  the  household.  She  was  the  econo- 
mist, bursar  and  disburse!. 

She  was  a  member  of  the  Congregational  Church,  with  a 
liberal  bias,  which  believed  in  ** endless  consequences,"  but 
not  in  ** endless  punishment."  Later  the  family  evolved  into 
Unitarians  by  the  easy  process  of  natural  selection. 
The  father  said  grace,  and  the  mother  led  in  family  prayers. 
She  had  ideas  of  her  own  and  expressed  them.  The  family 
took  the  Boston  Weekly  Congregationalist  and  the  Bedford 
Weekly  Standard.  In  the  household  there  was  a  bookcase  of 
nearly  a  hundred  volumes.  It  was  the  most  complete  library 
in  town,  excepting  that  of  the  minister. 
The  home  where  H.  H.  Rogers  was  born  still  stands.  Its 
frame  was  made  in  Sixteen  Hundred  and  Ninety — mortised, 
tenoned  and  pinned.  In  the  garret  the  rafters  show  the 
loving  marks  of  the  broadaxe — to  swing  which  musical 
instrument  with  grace  and  effectiveness  is  now  a  lost  art. 
^  How  short  is  the  life  of  man !  Here  a  babe  was  born,  who  lived 
his  infancy,  youth,  manhood ;  who  achieved  as  one  in  a  mil- 
lion, who  died,  yet  the  house  of  his  birth — old  at  the  time — 
still  stubbornly  stands  as  if  to  make  mock  of  our  ambitions. 
A  hundred  years  ago  Fairhaven  had  a  dozen  men  or  more 
who  with  an  auger,  an  adz,  a  broadaxe,  and  a  draw-shave 
could  build  a  boat  or  a  house  warranted  to  outlast  the  owner. 
^  I  had  tea  in  this  house  where  H.  H.  Rogers  was  born  and 
where  his  boyhood  days  were  spent.  I  fetched  an  armful  of 
wood  for  the  housewife,  and  would  have  brought  a  bucket  of 
water  for  her  from  the  pump,  only  the  pump  is  now  out  of 
commission,  having  been  replaced  by  the  new-fangled  water- 
132 


works  presented  to  the  town  by  a  Standard  Oil  magnate  ^ 
Here  Henry  Rogers  brought  chips  in  a  wheelbarrow  from  the 
shipyard  on  baking-days ;  here  he  hoed  the  garden  and  helped 
his  mother  fasten  up  the  flaming,  flaring  hollyhocks  against 
the  house  with  strips  of  old  sail-cloth  and  tacks. 
There  were  errands  to  look  after,  and  usually  a  pig,  and 
sometimes  two,  that  accumulated  adipose  on  purslane  and 
lamb's-quarters,  with  surplus  clams  for  dessert,  also  quo- 
hogs  to  preserve  the  poetic  unities.  Then  there  came  a  time 
when  the  family  kept  a  cow  that  was  pastured  on  the 
common,  the  herd  being  looked  after  by  a  man  who  had 
fought  valiantly  in  the  War  of  Eighteen  Hundred  and 
Twelve,  and  who  used  to  tell  the  boys  about  it,  fighting  the 
battles  over  with  crutch  and  cane. 

In  the  winter  the  ice  sometimes  froze  solid  clean  across 
Buzzards  Bay.  The  active  and  hustling  boys  had  skates 
made  by  the  village  blacksmith.  Henry  Rogers  had  two  pair, 
and  used  to  loan  one  pair  out  for  two  cents  an  hour.  Boys  who 
had  no  skates  and  could  not  beg  or  borrow  and  who  had  but 
one  cent  could  sometimes  get  one  skate  for  a  while  and  thus 
glide  gracefully  on  one  foot.  There  was  good  fishing  through 
the  ice,  only  it  was  awful  cold  work  and  not  much  pay,  for 
fish  could  hardly  be  given  away. 

In  the  summer  there  were  clams  to  dig,  blueberries  to  gather, 
and  pond-lilies  had  a  value — I  guess  so!  Then  in  the  early 
spring  folks  raked  up  their  yards  and  made  bonfires  of  the 
winter's  debris.  Henry  Rogers  did  these  odd  jobs,  and  re- 
ligiously took  his  money  home  to  his  mother,  who  placed  it 
in  the  upper  right-hand  corner  of  a  bureau-drawer. 

133 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

The  village  school  was  kept  by  an  Irishman  who  had  attended 
Harvard.  He  believed  in  the  classics  and  the  efficacy  of  the 
ferule,  and  doted  on  Latin,  which  he  also  used  as  a  punish- 
ment Jti  J> 

Henry  Rogers  was  alive  and  alert  and  was  diplomatic  enough 
to  manage  the  Milesian  pedagogue  without  his  ever  knowing 
it.  The  lessons  were  easy  to  him — he  absorbed  in  the  mass. 
Beside  that,  his  mother  helped  nights  by  the  light  of  a 
whale-oil  lamp,  for  her  boy  was  going  to  grow  up  to  be  a 
school-teacher — or  possibly  a  minister,  who  knows! 
Out  in  Illinois,  when  the  Wanderlust  used  to  catch  the 
evolving  youth,  who  was  neither  a  boy  nor  a  man,  he  ran 
away  and  went  Out  West.  In  New  England  the  same  lad 
would  have  shipped  before  the  mast,  and  let  his  parents  guess 
where  he  was — their  due  punishment  for  lack  of  appreciation. 
fl  To  grow  up  on  the  coast  and  hear  the  tales  of  the  seafaring 
men  who  have  gone  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  is  to  catch  it 
sooner  or  later. 

At  fifteen  Henry  Rogers  caught  it,  and  was  duly  recorded  to 
go^^on  a  whaler.  Luckily  his  mother  got  word  of  it,  and  can- 
celed the  deal.  About  then,  good  fortune  arrived  in  the  form 
of  Opportunity.  The  young  man  who  peddled  the  New  Bedford 
Standard  wanted  to  dispose  of  his  route. 
Henry  bought  the  route  and  advised  with  his  mother  after- 
ward, only  to  find  that  she  had  sent  the  seller  to  him.  Honors 
were  even.  His  business  was  to  deliver  the  papers  with 
precision.  Later  he  took  on  the  Boston  papers,  also.  This  is 
what  gave  rise  to  the  story  that  Henry  Rogers  was  a  newsboy. 
fl  He  was  a  newsboy,  but  he  was  a  newsboy  extraordinary. 
134 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

He  took  orders  for  advertisements  for  the  '* Standard,"  and 
was  also  the  Fairhaven  correspondent,  supplying  the  news 
as  to  who  was  visiting  who ;  giving  names  of  the  good  citizens 
who  were  shingling  their  chicken-houses,  and  mentioning 
those  enjoying  poor  health. 

Whether  the  news  did  anybody  any  good  or  not  matters  little 
— the  boy  was  learning  to  write.  In  after  years  he  used  to 
refer  to  this  period  of  his  life  as  his  '* newspaper  career." 
Superstitious  persons  have  been  agitated  about  that  word 
"Standard,"  and  how  it  should  have  ominously  come  into 
the  life  of  H.  H.  Rogers  at  this  early  time. 
When  the  railroad  came  in,  Henry  got  a  job  as  assistant 
baggageman.  The  conductorship  was  in  sight  — twenty 
years  away,  but  promised  positively  by  a  kind  relative — 
when  something  else  appeared  on  the  horizon  and  a  good  job 
was  exchanged  for  a  better  one. 

An  enterprising  Boston  man  had  established  a  chain  of 
groceries  along  the  coast,  and  was  monopolizing  the  business, 
or  bidding  fair  to  do  so. 

By  buying  for  many  stores,  he  could  buy  cheaper  than  any  other 
one  man  could.  But  the  main  point  was  that  the  plan  was  to 
go  to  the  home,  take  the  order  and  deliver  the  goods.  Before 
that,  if  you  wanted  things  you  went  to  the  store,  selected 
them  and  carried  them  home.  To  have  asked  the  storekeeper 
to  deliver  the  goods  to  your  house  would  have  given  that 
gentleman  heart-failure.  He  did  mighty  well  to  carry  in 
stock  the  things  people  needed.  But  here  was  a  revolutionary 
method — a  new  deal.  Henry  Rogers'  father  said  it  was  initia- 
tive gone  mad,  and  would  only  last  a  few  weeks.  Henry 

135 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

Rogers*  mother  said  otherwise,  and  Henry  agreed  with  her. 
He  had  clerked  in  his  father's  grocery,  and  so  knew  some- 
thing of  the  business.  Moreover,  he  knew  the  people — he 
knew  every  family  in  Fairhaven  by  name,  and  most  of  them 
for  six  miles  around  as  well.  ^  He  started  in  at  three  dollars 
a  week,  taking  orders  and  driving  the  delivery-wagon. 
In  six  months  his  pay  was  five  dollars  a  week  and  a  commis- 
sion. In  a  year  he  was  making  twenty  dollars  a  week.  He  was 
only  eighteen — slim,  tall,  bronzed  and  strong.  He  could 
carry  a  hundred  pounds  on  his  shoulder.  The  people  along 
his  route  liked  him — he  was  cheerful  and  accommodating. 
Not  only  did  he  deliver  the  things,  but  he  put  them  away 
in  cellar,  barn,  closet,  garret  or  cupboard.  He  did  not  only 
what  he  was  paid  to  do,  but  more.  He  anticipated  Ali  Baba 
who  said,  ''Folks  who  never  do  any  more  than  they  get  paid 
for,  never  get  paid  for  anything  more  than  they  do. " 
It  was  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty-nine,  and  Henry 
Rogers  was  making  money.  He  owned  his  route,  and  the 
manager  of  the  stores  was  talking  about  making  him  assist- 
ant superintendent.  Had  he  stuck  to  his  job  he  might  have 
become  a  partner  in  the  great  firm  of  Cobb,  Bates  and  Yerxa, 
and  put  Bates  to  the  bad.  It  would  have  then  been  Cobb, 
Rogers  and  Yerxa — and  later,  H.  H.  Rogers,  Dealer  in  Staple 
and  Fancy  Groceries. 

But  something  happened  about  this  time  that  shook  New 
Bedford  to  its  center,  and  gave  Fairhaven  a  thrill. 
Whale-oil  was  whale-oil  then,  and  whale-oil  and  New  Bed- 
ford were  synonymous.  Now,  a  man  out  in  Pennsylvania  had 
bored  down  into  the  ground  and  struck  a  reservoir.  A  sort  of 
136 


E 


spouting  sperm-whale!  With  this  difference:  whales  spout 
sea-water,  while  this  gusher  spouted  whale-oil,  or  something 
just  as  good. 


HE  year  Eighteen  Hundred  and 
Fifty-nine  is  an  unforgettable  date 
— a  date  that  ushers  in  the  Great 
American  Renaissance,  in  which 
we  now  live.  Three  very  important 
events  occurred  that  year.  One 
was  the  hanging  of  Old  John 
Brown,  who  was  fifty-nine  years 
old,  and  thus  not  so  very  old.  This 
event  made  a  tremendous  stir  in 
Fairhaven,  just  as  it  did  every- 
where, especially  in  rural  districts. 
The  second  great  event  that  happened  in  Eighteen  Hundred 
and  Fifty-nine  was  the  publication  of  a  book  by  a  man  born 
in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Nine,  the  same  year  that  Lincoln 
was  bom.  The  man's  name  was  Charles  Darwin,  and  his 
book  was  **The  Origin  of  Species."  His  volume  was  to  do  for 
the  theological  world  what  John  Brown's  raid  did  for 
American  politics.  QThe  third  great  event  that  occurred  in 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty-nine  was  when  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Edwin  L.  Drake,  Colonel  by  grace,  bored  a  well 
and  struck  "rock-oil"  at  Titusville,  Pennsylvania. 

137 


At  that  time  **rock-oil"  or  **coal-oil"  was  no  new  thing.  It 
had  been  found  floating  on  the  water  of  streams  in  West 
Virginia,  Kentucky,  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania. 
There  were  rumors  that  some  one  in  digging  for  salt  had 
tapped  a  reservoir  of  oil  that  actually  flowed  a  stream.  There 
were  oil-springs  around  Titusville  and  along  Oil  Creek.  The 
oil  ran  down  on  the  water  and  was  skimmed  off  by  men  in 
boats.  Several  men  were  making  modest  fortunes  by  bottling 
the  stuff  and  selling  it  as  a  medicine.  In  England  it  was  sold 
as  ** American  Natural  Oil,"  and  used  for  a  liniment.  The 
Indians  had  used  it,  and  the  world  has  a  way  of  looking  to 
aborigines  for  medicine,  even  if  not  for  health.  Spiritualistic 
meditmis  and  doctors  bank  heavily  on  Indians. 
This  natural  oil  was  known  to  be  combustible.  Out-of-doors 
it  helped  the  camp-fire.  But  if  burned  indoors  it  made  a 
horrible  smoke  and  a  smell  to  conjure  with. 
Up  to  that  time  whale-oil  had  been  mostly  used  for  illumina- 
ting and  lubricating  purposes. 

But  whale-oil  was  getting  too  high  for  plain  people.  It  looked 
as  if  there  were  a  **  whale  trust. "  Some  one  sent  a  bottle  of  this 
'* natural  oil"  down  to  Prof.  Silliman  of  Yale  to  have  it 
analyzed  J-  ^ 

Prof.  Silliman  reported  that  the  oil  had  great  possibilities  if 
refined,  both  as  a  luminant  and  as  a  lubricant. 
To  refine  it,  a  good  man  who  ran  a  whisky-still  tried  his  plan 
of  the  worm  that  never  dies,  with  the  oil.  The  vapor  condensed 
and  was  caught  in  the  form  of  an  oil  that  was  nearly  white. 
This  oil  burned  with  a  steady  flame,  if  protected  by  a  lamp- 
chimney  ,^  Ji> 
138 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

Rock-oil  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty-eight  was  worth 
twenty  dollars  a  barrel.  Lumbermen  out  of  a  job  turned 
skimmers,  and  often  collected  a  barrel  a  day,  becoming  as  it 
were  members  of  the  cult  known  as  the  Predatory  Rich. 
This  is  what  tempted  Colonel  Drake  to  bore  his  well,  and  see 
if  possible  if  he  might  strike  the  vein  that  was  making  the 
skimmers  turn  octopi.  ^  It  took  Drake  nearly  a  year  to  drill 
his  well.  He  met  with  various  obstacles  and  difficulties,  but 
on  August  Twenty-second,  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Fifty- 
nine,  that  neck  of  the  woods  was  electrified  by  the  news 
that  Drake's  Folly  was  gushing  rock-oil. 
Soon  there  were  various  men  busily  boring  all  round  the 
neighborhood,  with  the  aid  of  spring-poles  and  other  rude 
devices.  Several  struck  it  rich,  but  many  had  their  labor  for 
their  pains.  One  man  was  getting  sixty-five  barrels  a  day  and 
selling  the  oil  for  eighteen  dollars  a  barrel. 
The  trouble  was  to  transport  the  oil — barrels  were  selling  for 
five  dollars  each,  and  there  were  no  tanks.  This  was  a  lumber 
country,  with  no  railroads  within  a  hundred  miles.  One 
enterprising  man  went  down  to  Pittsburg  and  bought  a  raft- 
load  of  barrels,  which  he  towed  up  the  Allegheny  River  to  the 
mouth  of  Oil  Creek.  Then  he  hired  farmers  for  ten  dollars  a 
day  with  teams  to  take  the  barrels  to  Titusville  and  fill  them 
and  bring  them  back.  The  oil  was  floated  down  to  Pittsburg 
and  sold  at  a  big  profit.  Stills  were  made  to  refine  the  oil, 
which  was  sold  to  the  consumer  at  seventy-five  cents  a 
gallon.  The  heavy  refuse  oils  were  thrown  away. 
In  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Sixty  began  the  making  of  lamp- 
chimneys,  a  most  profitable  industry.  The  chimneys  sold  for 

139 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

fifty  cents  each,  and  with  the  aid  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton's 
invention  did  not  long  survive  life's  rude  vicissitudes. 
Men  were  crowding  into  the  oil  country,  lured  by  the  tales  of 
enormous  fortunes  and  rich  finds.  ^  No  one  could  say  what 
you  might  discover  by  digging  down  into  the  ground.  One 
man  claimed  to  have  struck  a  vein  of  oyster-soup.  And  any- 
way  he   sold   oyster-soup  over   his  counter  at  a  dollar  a 
dish.  Gas-gushers  were  lighted  and  burned   without  com- 
punction as  to  waste.  Gamblers  were  working  overtime. 
The  first  railroad  into  the  oil  country  came  from  Pittsburg, 
and  was  met  by  fight  and  defiance  from  the  Amalgamated 
Brotherhood  of  Teamsters,  who  saw  their  business  fading 
away.  The  farmers,  too,  opposed  the  railroad,  as  they  meant 
an  end  to  horse-flesh,  excepting  as  an  edible. 
But  the  opposition  wore  itself  out,  and  the  railroad  replaced 
its  ripped-up  rails,  and  did  business  on  its  grass-grown  right 
of  way  and  streaks  of  rust.  QThe  second  railroad  came  from 
Cleveland,  which  city  was  a  natural  distributing-point  to  the 
vast  consuming  territory  lying  along  the  Great  Lakes. 
John  D.  Rockefeller,  a  clerk  in  a  Cleveland  commission- 
house,  became  interested  in  the  oil  business  in  Eighteen 
Hundred  and  Sixty-two.  He  was  then  twenty-three  years  old, 
and  had  five  hundred  dollars  in  the  bank  saved  from  his 
wages.  He'^put  this  money  into  a  refining-still  at  Titus ville, 
with  several  partners,  all  working  men.  John  peddled  the 
product  and  became  expert  on  **pure  white"  and  "straw 
color. "  He  also  saw  that  a  part  of  the  so-called  refuse  could 
be  re-treated  and  made  into  a  product  that  was  valuable  for 
lubricating  purposes. 
140 


H    . 


H    . 


E 


Other  men  about  the  same  time  made  a  like  discovery.  ^  It 
was  soon  found  that  refined  oil  could  not  be  shipped  with 
profit;  the  barrels  often  had  to  be  left  in  the  sunshine  or 
exposed  to  the  weather,  and  transportation  facilities  were  very 
uncertain.  The  still  was  then  torn  out  and  removed  to  Cleve- 
land J>  ^ 

The  oil  business  was  a  most  hazardous  one.  Crude  oil  had 
dropped  from  twenty  dollars  a  barrel  to  fifty  cents  a  barrel.  No 
one  knew  the  value  of  oil,  for  no  one  knew  the  extent  of  the 
supply.  An  empty  barrel  was  worth  two  dollars,  and  the  crude 
oil  to  fill  it  could  be  bought  for  half  that. 


T  twenty-one,  two  voices  were 
calling  to  Henry  Rogers:  love  of 
country  and  business  ambition. 
The  war  was  coming  and  New 
England  patriotism  burned  deep 
in  the  Rogers  heart.  But  this 
young  man  knew  that  he  had  a 
genius  for  trade.  He  was  a  sales- 
man— that  is  to  say,  he  was  a 
diplomat  and  an  adept  in  the 
management  of  people.  Where  and 
how  could  he  use  his  talent  best? 
fi  When  Sumter  was  fired  upon,  it  meant  that  no  ship  flying 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  was  safe.  The  grim  aspect  of  war  came 

141 


H.  H,  ROGERS 

home  to  New  Bedford  with  a  reeling  shock,  when  news 
arrived  that  a  whaler,  homeward  bound,  had  been  captured, 
towed  into  Charleston  Harbor  and  the  ship  and  cargo  con- 
fiscated J>  J* 

It  was  a  blow  of  surprise  to  the  captain  and  sailors  on  this 
ship,  too,  for  they  had  been  out  three  years  and  knew  nothing 
of  what  was  going  on  at  home.  Then  certain  Southern 
privateers  got  lists  of  the  New  England  whale-ships  that  were 
out  and  lay  in  wait  for  them  as  whalers  lie  in  wait  for  the 
leviathan.  Q  Prices  of  whale-oil  soared  like  balloons.  New 
England  ships  at  home  tied  up  close  or  else  were  pressed 
into  government  service.  §  The  high  price  of  oil  fanned  the 
flame  of  speculation  in  Pennsylvania. 
Henry  H.  Rogers  was  twenty.  It  was  a  pivotal  point  in 
his  life.  He  was  in  love  with  the  daughter  of  the  captain  of  a 
whaler.  They  were  neighbors  and  had  been  schoolmates 
together.  Henry  talked  it  over  with  Abbie  Gilford — it  was 
war  or  the  oil-fields  of  Pennsylvania! 
And  love  had  its  way,  just  as  it  usually  has. 
The  ayes  had  it,  and  with  nearly  a  thousand  dollars  of  hard- 
earned  savings  he  went  to  the  oil-fields. 
At  that  time  most  of  the  crude  oil  was  shipped  to  tidewater 
and  there  refined.  In  the  refining  process,  only  twenty-five 
per  cent  of  the  product  was  saved,  seventy-five  per  cent 
being  thrown  away  as  worthless.  It  struck  young  Rogers 
that  the  refining  should  be  done  at  the  wells,  and  the  freight 
on  that  seventy-five  per  cent  saved.  To  that  end  he  entered 
into  a  partnership  with  Charles  Ellis,  and  erected  a  refinery 
between  Titusville  and  Oil  City. 
142 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

Rogers  learned  by  doing.  He  was  a  practical  refiner,  and 
soon  became  a  scientific  one. 

The  first  year  he  and  Ellis  divided  thirty  thousand  dollars 
between  them. 

In  the  fall  of  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Sixty-two,  when  he 
went  back  to  Fairhaven  to  claim  his  bride,  young  Rogers 
was  regarded  as  a  rich  man.  His  cruise  to  Pennsylvania  had 
netted  him  as  much  as  half  a  dozen  whales.  The  bride  and 
groom  returned  at  once  to  Pennsylvania  and  the  simple  life. 
q  Henry  and  Abbie  lived  in  a  one-roomed  shack  on  the  banks 
of  Oil  Creek.  It  was  love  in  a  cottage  all  right,  with  an  absolute 
lack  of  everything  that  is  supposed  to  make  up  civilization.  It 
was  n't  exactly  hardship,  for  nothing  is  really  hardship  to 
lovers  in  their  twenties  but  separation.  Stili  they  thought, 
talked  and  dreamed  of  the  bluefish,  the  blueberries,  the  blue 
waters,  the  clams  and  the  sea-breezes  of  Fairhaven. 
About  this  time,  Charles  Pratt,  a  dealer  and  refiner  of  oils, 
of  Brooklyn,  appears  upon  the  horizon.  Pratt  had  bought 
whale-oil  of  Ellis  in  Fairhaven.  Pratt  now  contracted  for 
the  entire  refined  output  of  Rogers  and  Ellis  at  a  fiixed  price. 
^  All  went  well  for  a  few  months,  when  crude  suddenly 
took  a  skjrward  turn,  owing  to  the  manipulation  of  specu- 
lators. Rogers  and  Ellis  had  no  wells  and  were  at  the 
mercy  of  the  wolves.  They  struggled  on  trying  to  live  up  to 
their  contract  with  Pratt,  but  soon  their  surplus  was  wiped 
out,  and  they  found  themselves  in  debt  to  Pratt  to  the  tune 
of  several  thousand  dollars.  ^  Rogers  went  on  to  New  York 
and  saw  Pratt,  personally  assuming  the  obligation  of  taking 
care  of  the  deficit.  Ellis  disappeared  in  the  mist. 

143 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

The  manly  ways  of  Rogers  so  impressed  Pratt  that  he 
decided  he  needed  just  such  a  man  in  his  business.  A 
bargain  was  struck,  and  Rogers  went  to  work  for  Pratt. 
The  first  task  of  young  Rogers  was  to  go  to  Pennsylvania 
and  straighten  out  the  affairs  of  the  Pennsylvania  Salt 
Company,  of  which  Pratt  was  chief  owner. 
The  work  was  so  well  done  that  Pratt,  waxing  enthusiastic, 
made  Rogers  foreman  of  his  Brooklyn  refinery. 
It  was  twenty-five  dollars  a  week,  with  a  promise  of  a 
partnership  if  sales  ran  over  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year  ,^ 
How  Henry  Rogers  moved  steadily  from  a  foreman  to 
manager,  and  then  superintendent,  of  Pratt's  Astral  Oil 
Refinery,  is  one  of  the  fairy-tales  of  America. 
Pratt  was  the  first  man  to  refine  crude  oil  east  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. He  had  long  dealt  in  lubricants  and  illuminants,  and 
had  a  reputation  for  fair  dealing. 

Henry  Rogers  became  hands  and  feet  and  eyes  and  ears  for 
Charles  Pratt. 

The  year's  sales  not  only  reached  fifty  thousand  dollars,  but 
over  twice  that.  The  second  year  doubled  the  first.  Henry  did 
not  draw  his  commissions.  In  fact,  Pratt  could  not  pay  them : 
the  business  was  expanding,  and  every  dollar  of  capital  was 
needed  that  could  be  scraped  together.  Pratt  gave  Rogers  an 
interest  in  the  business,  and  Rogers  got  along  on  his  twenty- 
five  dollars  a  week,  although  the  books  showed  he  was 
making  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year.  He  worked  like  a  pack- 
mule.  His  wife  brought  his  meals  to  the  "works,"  and  often 
he  would  sleep  but  three  hours  a  night,  as  he  could  snatch 
the  time,  rolled  up  in  a  blanket  by  the  side  of  a  still. 
144 


H    . 


H 


Then  comes  John  D.  Rockefeller  from  Cleveland,  with  his 
plans  of  co-operation  and  consolidation. 
Pratt  talked  it  over  with  Rogers,  and  they  decided  that  the 
combination  would  steady  the  commercial  sails  and  give 
ballast  to  the  ship.  They  named  their  own  terms.  The  Rocke- 
fellers sneezed,  and  then  coughed.  Next  day  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller came  back  and  quietly  accepted  the  offer  exactly  as 
Rogers  had  formulated  it. 

The  terms  were  stiff,  but  Rockefeller,  a  few  years  later,  got 
even  with  the  slightly  arrogant  Rogers  by  passing  him  this — 
"I  would  have  paid  you  and  Pratt  twice  as  much  if  you  had 
demanded  it. " 

"Which  you  are  perfectly  safe  in  saying  now — and  which 
signifies  nothing  anyway,  since  the  past  is  a  dry  hole. " 
And  they  shook  hands  solemnly. 

Rockefeller  ordered  a  glass  of  milk  and  Rogers  took  ginger 
ale  d/^Ji' 

Rockefeller  was  only  one  year  older  than  Rogers,  but  seemed 
twenty.  Rockefeller  was  always  old  and  always  discreet ;  he 
never  lost  his  temper;  he  was  warranted  non-explosive 
from  childhood.  Rogers  at  times  was  spiritual  benzine. 


145 


H    . 


H    . 


N^Eighteen  Hundred  and  Seventy- 
two  there  were  twenty-six  sepa- 
rate oil-refineries  in  Cleveland. 
Refined  oil  sold  to  the  consumer 
for  twenty  cents  a  gallon;  and 
much  of  it  was  of  an  unsafe  and 
uncertain  quality — it  was  what  you 
might  call  erratic. 
Some  of  the  refineries  were  poorly 
equipped,  and  fire  was  a  factor 
that  made  the  owners  sit  up  nights 
when  they  should  have  been  asleep. 
Insurance  was  out  of  the  question. 

One  of  these  concerns  was  The  Acme  Oil  Company,  of  which 
John  D.  Archbold  was  President.  Its  capital  was  forty  thou- 
sand dollars,  some  of  which  had  been  paid  in,  in  cash.  Wil- 
liam Rockefeller  was  at  the  head  of  still  another  company; 
and  John  D.  Rockefeller,  brother  of  William,  and  two  yesirs 
older,  had  an  interest  in  three  more  concerns. 
Outbidding  each  other  for  supplies,  hiring  each  other*s 
men,  with  a  production  made  up  of  a  multiplicity  of  grades, 
made  the  business  one  of  chaotic  uncertainty.  The  rule  was 
"dog  eat  dog." 

Then  it  was  that  John  D.  Rockefeller  conceived  the  idea  of 
combining  all  of  the  companies  in  Cleveland  and  as  many 
elsewhere  as  possible,  under  the  name  of  The  Standard  Oil 
Trust.  The  corporation  was  duly  formed  with  a  capital  of 
one  million  dollars.  The  Pratt  Oil  Company,  with  principal 
works  in  Brooklyn,  but  a  branch  in  Cleveland,  was  one  of 
146 


H.  H,  ROGERS 

the  twenty  concerns  that  were  absorbed.  The  stocks  of  the 
various  concerns  were  taken  up  and  paid  for  in  Standard  Oil 
certificates. 

And  so  it  happened  that  Henry  H.  Rogers,  aged  thirty-two, 
found  himself  worth  a  hundred  thousand  dollars,  not  in  cash 
but  in  shares  that  were  supposed  to  be  worth  par,  and  should 
pay  if  rightly  managed  seven  or  eight  per  cent. 
He  was  one  of  the  directors  in  the  new  company. 
It  was  an  enviable  position  for  any  young  man.  Of  course 
there  were  the  wiseheimers  then  as  now,  and  statements  were 
made  that  The  Pratt  Oil  Company  had  been  pushed  to  the 
wall,  and  would  shortly  have  its  neck  wrung  by  John  D. 
Rockefeller  and  have  to  start  all  over.  But  these  prophets 
knew  neither  Rockefeller  nor  Rogers,  and  much  less  the 
resources  and  wants  of  the  world. 

In  very  truth,  neither  the  brothers  Rockefeller,  Rogers,  nor 
Archbold,  nor  any  one  of  that  score  of  men  who  formed  The 
Standard  Oil  Company,  ever  anticipated,  even  in  their  wildest 
dreams,  the  possibilities  in  the  business.  The  growth  of 
America  in  men  and  money  has  been  a  thing  unguessed  and 
unprophesied.  Thomas  Jefferson  seemed  to  have  had  more 
of  a  prophetic  eye  than  any  one  else,  but  he  never  imagined 
the  railroads,  pipe-lines,  sky-scrapers,  iron  steamships,  tele- 
graphs, telephones,  nor  the  use  of  electricity  and  concrete. 
^  He  did,  however,  see  our  public-school  system,  and  he  said 
that  **by  the  year  Nineteen  Hundred  the  United  States  will 
have  a  population  of  fifty  million  people."  This  is  why  he 
made  that  real-estate  deal  with  Napoleon,  which  most  Ameri- 
cans of  the  time  thought  a  bad  bargain. 

147 


Rogers  had  great  hope  and  an  exuberant  imagination,  but 
the  most  he  saw  for  himself  was  an  income  of  five  thousand 
a  year,  and  a  good  house,  unencumbered,  with  a  library  and 
guest-room.  In  addition,  he  expected  to  own  a  horse  and 
buggy.  He  would  take  care  of  the  horse  himself,  and  wash 
the  buggy,  also  grease  the  axles. 

In  fact,  his  thoughts  were  on  flowers,  books,  education,  and 
cultivating  his  mental  acreage. 

John  D.  Rockefeller  was  sorely  beset  by  business  burdens  jt 
The  Standard  Oil  Company  had  moved  its  headquarters  to 
New  York  City,  where  its  business  was  largely  exporting. 
The  brothers  Rockefeller  found  themselves  swamped  under 
a  mass  of  detail.  ^  Power  flows  to  the  men  who  can  shoulder 
it,  and  burdens  go  to  those  who  can  carry  them. 
Here  was  a  business  without  precedent,  and  all  growing 
beyond  human  thought.  To  meet  the  issues  as  they  arise 
the  men  at  the  head  must  -grow  with  the  business. 
Rogers  could  make  decisions,  and  he  had  strength  like 
silken  fiber.  He  could  bend  but  never  break.  His  health  was 
perfect ;  his  mind  was  fluid ;  he  was  alive  and  alert  to  all  new 
methods  and  plans;  he  had  great  good-cheer,  and  was  of  a 
kind  to  meet  men  and  mold  them.  He  set  a  pace  which  only 
the  very  strong  could  follow,  but  which  inspired  all.  John  D. 
Rockefeller  worked  himself  to  a  physical  finish,  twenty  years 
ago;  and  his  mantle  fell  by  divine  right  on  **H.  H.,"  with 
John  D.  Archbold  as  understudy. 

Since  John  D.  Rockefeller  slipped  out  from  under  the  burden 
of  active  management,  about  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Eighty- 
eight,  the  business  has  more  than  quadrupled. 
148 


H    . 


John  D.  Rockefeller  never  got  mad,  and  Rogers  and  Arch- 
bold  made  it  a  rule  never  to  get  mad  at  the  same  time. 
When  the  stress  and  strife  began  to  cause  Rockefeller  to  lose 
his  hair  and  appetite,  he  once  pulled  down  his  long  upper  lip 
and  placidly  bewailed  his  inability  to  take  a  vacation.  Like 
many  another  good  man  he  thought  his  presence  was  a 
necessity  to  the  business. 

"Go  on  with  you, "  said  H.  H. ;  **am  I  not  here?  Then  there  is 
Archbold — he  is  always  Johnny  on  the  spot." 
Rockefeller  smiled  a  sphinx-like  smile,  as  near  as  he  ever 
came  to  indulging  in  a  laugh,  and  mosied  out  of  the  room. 
That  night  he  went  up  to  the  Catskills. 
The  next  day  a  telegram  came  from  Rockefeller  addressed 
to  **Johnny-on-the-Spot,  Twenty-six  Broadway." 
The  message  was  carried  directly  to  John  D.  Archbold,  with- 
out question,  and  duly  receipted  for. 

Since  then  the  phrase  has  become  a  classic;  but  few  people 
there  be  who  know  that  it  was  Rogers  who  launched  it,  or 
who  are  aware  that  the  original  charter  member  of  the 
On-the-Spot  Club  was  Johnny  Archbold. 


149 


H    . 


R 


H.  ROGERS  was  a  trail-maker, 
and  as  a  matter  of  course  was  not 
understanded  of  the  people  who 
hug  close  to  the  friendly  back- 
log, and  talk  of  other  days  and 
the  times  that  were. 
Rogers  was  an  economist — per- 
haps the  greatest  economist  of  his 
time  J'  ^ 

And  an  economist  deals  with 
conditions,  not  theories;  facts, 
not  fancies. 

A  few  years  ago,  all  retail  grocers  sold  kerosene.  The  kero- 
sene-can with  its  spud  on  the  spout  was  a  household  sign. 
Moreover,  we  not  only  had  kerosene  in  the  can,  but  we  had 
it  on  the  loaf  of  bread,  and  on  almost  everything  that  came 
from  the  grocer's.  For,  if  the  can  did  not  leak,  it  sweat,  and 
the  oil  of  gladness  was  on  the  hands  and  clothes  of  the  clerk. 
The  grocers  lifted  no  howl  when  the  handling  of  kerosene 
was  taken  out  of  their  hands.  In  truth,  they  were  never  so 
happy,  as  kerosene  was  hazardous  to  handle  and  entailed 
little  profit — the  stuff  was  that  cheap !  ^  Beside  that,  a  barrel 
of  forty-two  gallons  measured  out  to  the  user  about  thirty- 
eight  gallons.  Loaded  into  cars,  bumped  out,  lying  in  the  sun, 
on  station-platform,  it  always  and  forever  hunted  the  crevices. 
Schemes  were  devised  to  line  the  inside  of  barrels  with  rosin, 
but  always  the  stuff  stole  forth  to  freedom. 
Freight,  cartage,  leakage,  cooperage  and  return  of  barrels 
meant  loss  of  temper,  trade  and  dolodocci. 
150 


H.  H,  ROGERS 

Realizing  all  these  things,  H.  H.  Rogers,  aided  by  his  able 
Major-general,  John  D.  Archbold,  revolutionized  the  trade. 
^  The  man  who  now  handles  your  kerosene  does  not  handle 
your  sugar.  He  is  a  specialist. 

In  every  town  in  America  of  over  one  thousand  people  is  a 
Standard  Oil  agency.  The  oil  is  delivered  from  tank-cars  into 
iron  tanks.  From  there  it  is  piped  into  tank-wagons.  This 
wagon  comes  to  your  door,  and  the  gentlemanly  agent  sees 
that  your  little  household  tank  is  kept  filled. 
All  you  have  to  do  is  turn  a  faucet. 

Aye,  in  this  pleasant  village  of  East  Aurora  is  a  Standard  Oil 
Agent  who  will  fill  your  lamp  and  trim  the  wick,  provided  you 
buy  your  lamps,  chimneys  and  wicks  of  him. 
His  prices  are  reasonable,  his  service  faultless. 
He  has  tank-wagons  that  visit  the  villages  for  six  miles 
'round.  He  supplies  the  farmers  with  gasoline,  kerosene  or 
lubricating-oil.  And  yesterday  I  saw  him  greasing  a  farmer's 
wagon — all  included  in  the  modest  consideration  asked  for 
his  oil  ^  ^ 

And  this  service  is  Standard  Oil  Service — it  extends  from 
Halifax  to  San  Diego ;  from  New  Orleans  to  Hudson  Bay. 
In  very  truth,  it  covers  the  world. 

The  Standard  Oil  Company  takes  the  product  from  the  well, 
and  puts  it  into  the  tank  of  your  benzine-buggy,  oiling  the 
wheels  of  the  craft  while  your  wife  puts  on  her  hat. 
This  service,  with  prohibition  in  the  South,  has  ruined  the 
cooper's  trade,  the  trade  that  introduced  Mr.  H.  M.  Flagler 
into  The  Standard  Oil  Company. 

The  investment  in  cooperage  used  in  the  oil  business  has 

151 


H 


E 


shrunk  from  a  hundred  millions  to  less  than  five  millions, 
while  the  traffic  in  oil  has  doubled. 

And  the  germ  of  this  service  to  the  consumer  came  from  the 
time  when  Henry  Rogers  worked  a  grocery-route  for  a 
Co-operative  concern  that  cut  out  the  middleman  and  focused 
on  a  faultless  service  to  the  consumer. 


HE  name  ** petroleum"  is  Latin. 
The  word  has  been  in  use  since 
the  time  of  Pliny,  who  lived  neigh- 
bor to  Paul  in  Rome,  when  the 
Apostle  abided  in  his  own  hired 
house,  awaiting  trial  under  an 
indictment  for  saying  things  about 
the  Established  Religion. 
Until  within  sixty  years,  the  world 
thought  that  petroleum  was  one 
simple  substance.  Now  we  find  it 
is  a  thousand — mixed  and  fused 
and  blended  in  the  crucible  of  Time. 

Science  sifts,  separates,  dissolves,  analyzes,  classifies.  The 
perfumes  gathered  by  the  tendrils  of  violet  and  rose,  in  their 
divine  desire  for  expression,  are  found  in  petroleum  J> 
Aye,  the  colors  and  all  the  delicate  tints  of  petal,  of  stamen 
and  of  pistil  are  in  this  substance  stored  in  the  dark  recesses 
of  the^Earth.  ^Petroleum  has^yielded  up  over  two  thousand 
152 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

distinct  substances,  wooed  by  the  loving,  eager  caress  of  the 
Chemist.  All  of  the  elements  that  go  to  make  up  the  earth 
are  there.  Hundreds  of  articles  used  in  commerce  and  in  our 
daily  lives  are  gotten  from  petroleum. 

To  secure  these  in  a  form  fit  for  daily  use  was  the  tire- 
less task  of  Henry  H.  Rogers.  Not  by  his  own  hands,  of  course, 
for  life  is  too  short  for  that,  but  the  Universities  of  the  round 
world  have  been  called  upon  for  their  men  of  brains. 
Rogers'  business  was  to  discover  men. 
This  is  a  phase  of  the  history  of  The  Standard  Oil  Company 
that  has  not  yet  been  written,  but  which  is  of  vastly  greater 
importance  than  the  motions  of  well-meaning  but  non- 
producing  attorneys,  whose  mental  processes  are  "dry  holes." 
^"Science  is  classification,"  said  Aristotle  to  his  bad  boy  pupil, 
Alexander,  three  hundred  and  forty  years  before  Christ. 
** Science  is  commonsense  classified,"  said  Herbert  Spencer, 
fl"  Science  eliminates  the  worthless  and  the  useless  and  then 
makes  use  of  it  in  something  else,"  said  Thomas  A.  Edison. 
H.  H.  Rogers  utilized  the  worthless;  and  the  dividends 
of  The  Standard  Oil  Company  are  largely  a  result  of  cashing 
in  by-products. 

Rogers  not  only  rendered  waste  products  valuable,  but 
he  utilized  human  energies,  often  to  the  great  surprise  of 
the  owner. 

That  gentle  Tarbell  slant  to  the  effect  that  "Even  the  ele- 
vator-boys in  the  Standard  Oil  ofiices  are  hired  with  an  idea 
of  their  development, "  is  a  great  compliment  to  a  man  who 
was  not  only  a  great  business  man,  but  a  great  teacher. 
And  all  influential  men  are  teachers — whether  they  know  it 

153 


H.  H,  ROGERS 

or  not.  ^Perhaps  we  are  all  teachers — of  good  or  ill — I 
really  do  not  know. 

But  the  pedagogic  instinct  was  strong  in  Rogers.  He  barely 
escaped  a  professorship.  He  built  schoolhouses,  and  if  he 
had  had  time  would  have  taught  in  them.  He  looked  at  any 
boy,  not  for  what  he  was,  but  for  what  he  might  become. 
^  He  analyzed  every  man,  not  for  what  he  was,  but  for  what 
he  might  have  been,  or  what  he  would  be. 
Humanity  was  Rogers'  raw  stock,  not  petroleum. 
And  his  success  hinged  on  bringing  humanity  to  bear  on 
petroleum,  or,  if  you  please,  by  mixing  brains  with  rock-oil, 
somewhat  as  Horace  Greeley  advised  the  farmer  to  mix 
brains  with  his  compost.  Qln  judging  a  man  we  must  in 
justice  to  ourselves  ask,  **What  effect  has  this  man's  life, 
taken  as  a  whole,  had  on  the  world!" 
To  lift  out  samples  here  and  there  and  hold  them  up  does  not 
give  us  the  man,  any  more  than  a  sample  brick  gives  you 
a  view  of  the  house. 

And  viewing  the  life  of  Rogers  for  years,  from  the  time  he 
saw  the  light  of  a  whale-oil  lamp  in  Fairhaven,  to  the  man  as 
we  behold  him  now,  we  must  acknowledge  his  initiative  and 
his  power.  He  gave  profitable  work  to  millions. 
He  directly  made  homes  and  comforts  possible  for  thousands 
upon  thousands.  He  helped  the  young,  without  number,  to 
find  themselves  in  their  work  and  at  their  work. 
In  a  material  way  he  added  vast  millions  to  the  wealth  of  the 
world  by  the  utilization  of  products  whch  were  considered 
worthless  ^  ^ 

He  gloried  in  the  fresh  air — in  the  blasts  of  winter,  or  the 
154 


R 


zephyrs  of  spring.  The  expanse  of  heaving,  tossing  ice  was 

just  as  beautiful  to  him  as  the  smooth  flow  of  Heinrich 

Hudson's  waters,  as  they  hasten  to  the  sea. 

The  storied  **Twenty-six  Broadway"  is  no  den  of  ogres,  no 

gambling-resort  of  dark  and  devious  ways.  It  is  simply  an 

office  building,  full  of  busy  men  and  women — workers  who 

waste  neither  time  nor  money. 

You  will  find  there  no  figureheads,  no  gold  lace,  no  pomps 

and  ceremonies.  If  you  have  business  there,  you  locate  your 

man  without  challenge.  All  is  free,  open,  simple  and  direct. 

qOn  the  top  floor  is  a  restaurant,  where  all  lunch  in  a  common 

fraternal  way,  jolly  and  jocund,  as  becomes  men  who  carry 

big  burdens. 

The  place  is  democratic  to  a  fault,  for  the  controlling  spirits 

of  Twenty-six  Broadway  are  men  who  have  come  by  a  rocky 

road,  having  conquered  great   difficulties,   overcome   great 

obstacles,  and  while  often  thirsting  for  human  sympathy 

have  nevertheless  been  able  to  do  without  it. 

Success  is  apt  to  sour,  for  it  begets  an  opposition  that  is  often 

cruel  and  unjust. 

Reorganization  gives  the  demagogue  his  chance;  and  often 

his  literary  lyddite  strikes  close. 

But  Rogers  was  great  enough  to  know  that  the  penalty  of 

success  must  be  paid  J-  He  took  his  medicine,  and  smiled. 


155 


H 


IME  was  when  a  millionaire  was  a 
man  worth  a  million  dollars.  But 
that  day  is  passed. 
Next,  a  millionaire  was  a  man  who 
made  a  million  dollars  a  year. 
That,  too,  is  obsolete. 
The  millionaire  now  is  a  man  who 
spends  a  million  dollars  a  year.  In 
this  new  and  select  class,  a  class 
which  does  not  exist  outside  of 
America,  H.  H.  Rogers  was  a 
charter  member. 
**He  was  a  royal  gentleman,"  said  Booker  T.  Washington  to 
me.  '*When  I  was  in  need,  I  held  H.  H.  Rogers  in  reserve 
until  all  others  failed  me,  then  I  went  to  him  and  frankly  told 
my  needs.  He  always  heard  me  through,  and  then  told  me  to 
state  the  figure.  He  never  failed  me.' ' 
Rogers  gave  with  a  lavish  hand,  but  few  of  his  benefactions, 
comparatively,  were  known.  The  newspapers  have  made 
much  of  his  throwing  a  hawser  to  Mark  Twain  and  towing 
the  Humorist  off  of  a  financial  sand-bar.  ^  Also,  we  have 
heard  how  he  gave  Helen  Keller  to  the  world ;  for  without 
the  help  of  H.  H.  Rogers  that  wonderful  woman  would  still 
be  like  unto  the  eyeless  fish  in  the  Mammoth  Cave.  As  it 
is,  her  soul  radiates  an  inward  light  and  science  stands  un- 
covered. But  there  were  very  many  other  persons  and 
institutions  that  received  very  tangible  benefits  from  the 
hands  of  H.  H.  Rogers. 

One  method  he  had  of  giving  help  to  ambitious  young  men 
156 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

was  to  invest  in  stock  in  companies  that  were  not  quite 
strong  enough  financially  to  weather  a  gale.  And  very  often 
these  were  very  bad  investments.  Had  Rogers  stuck  to  Stand- 
ard Oil  his  fortune  would  have  been  double  what  it  was.  But 
for  the  money  he  did  not  much  care — he  played  the  game. 
^  Mr.  Rogers  was  too  wise  to  give  to  individuals.  He  knew  that 
mortal  tendency  referred  to  by  St.  Andre  de  Ligereaux  as 
**Hubbard*s  Law,"  or  the  Law  of  Altruistic  Injury.  This  law 
provides  that  whenever  you  do  for  a  person  a  service  which 
he  is  able  and  should  do  for  himself,  you  work  him  a  wrong 
instead  of  a  benefit. 

H.  H.  Rogers  sought  to  give  opportunity,  not  things.  When 
he  invested  a  million  dollars  in  a  tack-factory  in  Fairhaven, 
it  was  with  intent  to  supply  employment  to  every  man  or 
woman,  or  boy  or  girl,  in  Fairhaven  who  desired  work. 
He  wanted  to  make  poverty  inexcusable.  Yet  he  realized  that 
there  were  cases  where  age  and  disease  had  sapped  the 
person's  powers,  and  to  such  he  gave  by  stealth,  or  through 
friends  whom  he  loved  and  trusted.  Mrs.  W.  P.  Winsor,  of 
Fairhaven,  for  instance,  worked  days  and  months  overtime 
on  the  bidding  of  Mr.  Rogers  caring  for  emergency  cases, 
where  girls  and  boys  were  struggling  to  get  an  education  and 
care  for  aged  parents  and  invalid  brothers  and  sisters;  or 
where  fate  had  been  unkind  and  God,  seemingly,  had  forgot. 
^  Houses  were  painted,  mortgages  lifted,  taxes  paid,  monu- 
ments erected,  roadways  laid  out,  books  furnished,  trees 
planted,  ditches  dug,  bath-rooms  installed,  swamps  drained, 
bridges  built  in  hundreds  of  instances. 
This  is  not  philanthropy  of  a  high  order,  perhaps,  but  Rogers 

157 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

hated  both  the  words  **charitable"  and  ** philanthropic"  as 
applied  to  himself.  All  he  claimed  to  be  was  a  business  man 
who  paid  his  debts  and  who  tried  to  make  others  pay  theirs. 
The  people  he  helped  were  the  people  he  knew,  or  had  known, 
and  they  were  folks  who  had  helped  him.  He  never  forgot  a 
benefit — nor  a  wrong.  He  was  a  very  human  individual. 
To  give  to  a  person  where  the  account  is  not  balanced  by  a 
mutual  service  is,  probably,  to  add  an  enemy  to  your  list.  You 
have  uncovered  the  weakness  of  your  man — he  is  an  in- 
competent— and  he  will  never  forgive  you  for  making  the 
discovery  ^  ^ 

When  H.  H.  Rogers  paid  off  Mark  Twain's  indebtedness  to 
the  tune  of  ninety  thousand  dollars,  he  did  not  scratch  a  poet 
and  find  an  ingrate. 

What  he  actually  discovered  was  a  philosopher  and  a  prophet 
without  a  grouch. 

Somewhere  I  have  said  that  there  were  only  two  men  in 
America  who  could  be  safely  endowed.  One  is  Luther  Bur- 
bank  and  the  other  Booker  T.  Washington.  These  men  have 
both  made  the  world  their  debtors.  They  are  impersonal  men 
— sort  of  human  media  through  which  Deity  is  creating. 
They  ask  for  nothing — they  give  everything. 
Mark  Twain  belongs  in  this  same  select  list.  The  difference 
between  Mark  Twain  and  Luther  Burbank  is  this :  Mark  hoes 
his  spiritual  acreage  in  bed,  while  Luther  Burbank  works  in 
the  garden.  Luther  produces  spineless  cacti,  while  Mark  gives 
spineless  men  a  vertebra.  Mark  makes  us  laugh,  in  order  that 
he  may  make  us  think. 

The  last  time  I  saw  H.  H.  Rogers  was  in  his  oflSce  at  Twenty- 
158 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

six  Broadway.  Out  through  a  half-doorway,  leading  into  a 
private  conference-room,  I  saw  a  man  stretched  out  on  a 
sofa  asleep.  A  great  shock  of  white  hair  spread  out  over  the 
pillow  that  held  his  head ;  and  Huck  Finn  snores  of  peace,  in 
rhythmic  measures,  filled  the  room. 

Mr.  Rogers  noticed  my  glance  in  the  direction  of  the  Morpheus 
music.  He  smiled  and  said,  **  It  *s  only  Mark — he 's  taking 
a  little  well-earned  rest — he  was  born  tired,  you  know." 
^  If  Mark  Twain  were  not  a  rich  man  himself,  rich  in  mines  of 
truth,  fields  of  uncut  fun,  and  argosies  sailing  great  spiritual 
seas,  coming  into  port  laden  with  commonsense,  he  would 
long  since  have  turned  on  his  benefactor  and  nailed  his  hide 
on  the  barn-door  of  obliquity. 

As  it  is,  Mark  takes  his  own,  just  as  Socrates  did  from  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Pericles.  Aye,  or  as  did  Bronson  Alcott,  who  once 
ran  his  wheelbarrow  into  the  well-kept  garden  of  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson.  The  Orphic  One  was  loading  up  with 
potatoes,  peas,  beans  and  one  big  yellow  pumpkin,  when  he 
glanced  around  and  saw  the  man  who  wrote  **  Self -Reliance" 
gazing  at  him  seriously  and  steadily  over  the  garden-wall. 
The  author  of  the  author  of  "Little  Women"  winced,  but 
bracing  up,  gave  back  stare  for  stare,  and  in  a  voice  flavored 
with  resentment  and  defiance  said,  **I  need  them!" 
And  the  owner  of  the  garden  grew  abashed  before  that  virtuous 
gaze,  murmured  apologies,  and  retreated  in  good  order. 
^  And  Mark  Twain  used  to  explain  it  thus :  **  You  see,  it  is  like 
this :  Rogers  furnishes  the  plans  and  I  foot  the  bills. " 
And  that  was  all  there  was  about  it.  Only  a  big  man  can  take 
his  own  without  abasement. 

159 


H 


Mark  Twain  has  made  two  grins  grow  where  there  was  only 
a  growl  before.  I  don*t  care  where  he  gets  his  vegetables — 
nor  where  he  takes  a  well-earned  nap — and  neither  does  he. 


HE  average  millionaire  believes  in 
education,  because  he  has  heard 
the  commodity  highly  recom- 
mended in  the  newspapers.  Usu- 
ally, he  is  a  man  who  has  not  had 
college  advantages,  and  so  he  is 
filled  with  the  fallacy  that  he  has 
dropped  something  out  of  his  life. 
We  idealize  the  things  that  are  not 
ours  J-  ^ 

H.  H.  Rogers  was  an  exception — 
he  was  at  home  in  any  company. 
He  took  little  on  faith.  He  analyzed  things  for  himself.  And 
his  opinion  was  that  the  old-line  colleges  tended  to  destroy 
individuality  and  smother  initiative.  He  believed  that  the 
High  School  gave  the  key  to  the  situation,  and  to  carry  the 
youth  beyond  this  was  to  run  the  risk  of  working  his  ruin  J> 
**The  boy  who  leaves  the  High  School  at  seventeen,  and 
enters  actual  business,  stands  a  much  better  chance  of  success 
than  does  the  youth  who  comes  out  of  college  at  twenty-one, 
with  the  world  yet  before  him, "  he  said.  ^  He  himself  was 
one  of  the  first  class  that  graduated  from  the  old  Fairhaven 
1 60 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

Grammar  School.  He  realized  that  his  success  in  life  came 
largely  from  the  mental  ammunition  that  he  had  gotten  there, 
and  from  the  fact  that  he  made  quick  use  of  his  knowledge. 
Yet  he  realized  that  the  old  Fairhaven  High  or  Grammar 
School  was  not  a  model  institution.  **It  has  a  maximum  of 
discipline  and  a  minimum  of  inspiration,"  he  used  to  say. 
The  changing  order  of  education  found  a  quick  response  in 
his  heart.  He  never  brooded  over  his  early  lack  of  advantages. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  used  often  to  refer  to  the  fact  that  his 
childhood  was  ideal.  But  all  around  he  saw  children  whose 
surroundings  were  not  ideal,  and  these  he  longed  to  benefit 
and  bless. 

And  so  in  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Eighty,  when  he  was  forty 
years  of  age,  he  built  a  Grammar  Manual-Training  School  and 
presented  it  to  the  town.  It  was  called  the  Rogers  School. 
Such  a  gift  to  a  town  is  enough  to  work  the  local  immortality 
of  the  giver.  But  the  end  was  not  yet.  In  a  few  years,  Rogers — 
or  Mrs.  Rogers,  to  be  exact — presented  to  the  village  a  Town 
Hall,  beautiful  and  complete,  at  a  cost  of  something  over  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 

Next  came  the  Millicent  Public  Library,  in  memory  of  a 
beloved  daughter. 

When  his  mother  passed  away,  as  a  memorial  to  her,  he 
built  a  church  and  presented  it  to  the  Unitarian  denomi- 
nation. It  is  probably  the  most  complete  and  artistic  church 
in  America.  Its  cost  was  a  million  dollars. 
The  Fairhaven  Water-works  System  was  a  present  from  Mr. 
Rogers  jfc  ^ 

And  lastly  was  the  Fairhaven  High  School,  as  fair  and  fine 

i6i 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

an  edifice,  and  as  completely  equipped,  as  genius  married  to 
money  could  supply.  The  only  rival  this  school  has  in  America 
is  the  Stout  High  School  in  Menominee,  Wisconsin,  which  is 
also  the  gift  of  an  individual. 

No  municipality  in  the  world  has  ever  erected  and  completed 
so  good  a  school — the  taxpayers  would  not  allow  it.  Into  our 
school-teaching  goes  the  cheese-paring  policies  of  the 
average  villager.  In  truth,  George  Bernard  Shaw  avers  that 
we  are  a  nation  of  villagers. 

The  big  deeds  of  the  world  are  always  done  by  individuals. 
One-man  power  is  the  only  thing  that  counts.  The  altruistic 
millionaire  is  a  necessity  of  progress — he  does  magnificent 
things,  which  the  many  will  not  and  can  not  do. 
So  we  find  the  model  town  of  Fairhaven  molded  and  fashioned 
by  her  First  Citizen.  Q  Everywhere  are  the  marks  of  his 
personality,  and  the  tangible  signs  of  his  good  taste. 
The  only  political  office  to  which  Henry  H.  Rogers  ever 
aspired  was  that  of  Street  Commissioner  of  Fairhaven.  He 
filled  the  office  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  constituents,  and 
drew  his  stipend  of  three  dollars  a  day  for  several  years. 
Good  roads  was  his  hobby.  Next  to  this  came  tree-planting 
and  flowers.  His  dream  was  to  have  the  earth  transformed 
into  a  vast  flower-garden  and  park  and  given  to  the  people. 
^  His  last  item  of  public  work  was  an  object-lesson  as  to  what 
the  engineering  skill  of  man  can  do.  He  took  a  great  bog 
or  swamp  that  lay  to  the  North  of  the  village  and  was  used 
as  a  village  dumping-ground.  He  drained  this  tract,  filled  in 
with  gravel,  and  then  earth,  and  transformed  it  into  a  public 
park  of  marvelous  beauty. 
162 


H.  H.  ROGERS 

Abbie  Gilford  Rogers  was  the  mother  of  four  children — one 
son  and  three  daughters.  These  children  all  possess  a  deal  of 
the  commonsense  of  their  parents.  The  career  of  their 
brilliant  father  has  not  dazzled  them,  neither  has  his  money 
sent  them  dancing  down  the  primrose  path  of  dalliance. 
They  are  conservative,  modest  and  sensible  folk  who  do  their 
work  and  abjure  the  spot-light. 

It  is  a  big  handicap  to  a  young  man  to  have  a  genius  for  a 
father.  Great  caution  is  here  advised  in  selection.  Always  and 
forever  he  is  compared  by  publican  and  proletariat,  alike, 
with  his  great  progenitor.  If  father  and  son  could  be  compared 
at  the  same  age  it  might  not  be  so  bad.  But  the  boy  of  twenty 
has  to  live  up  to  the  record  of  the  seasoned  warrior  of  sixty. 
fl  It  is  a  satisfaction  to  see  how  well  H.  H.  Rogers,  Jr.,  endures 
the  test. 

The  young  man  puts  forth  no  effort  to  rival  the  great  man 
gone.  He  does  not  call  himself  his  **successor."  He  knows 
that  men  of  the  type  of  his  father  are  individuals — God  never 
duplicates  them — and  this  perhaps  is  well. 
The  second  wife  of  Mr.  Rogers  was  Emelie  Augusta  Randel, 
who  survives  him.  Napoleon  succeeded  through  his  marshals 
— and  so  did  H.  H.  Rogers.  Mrs.  Rogers  is  a  woman  of  grace 
and  a  woman  of  ability.  In  all  of  his  benefactions  this  fine 
and  able  woman  was  a  worthy  coadjutor  to  her  husband. 
^  She  was  his  friend,  his  counselor,  his  servant,  his  secretary, 
his  wife — loyal  and  loving,  tender  and  true,  honest  and 
sincere — wanting  little,  giving  much. 

The  last  great  business  effort  of  H.  H.  Rogers  was  the  build- 
ing of  the  Virginian  Railroad. 

163 


H   . 


H    . 


G 


The  road  connects  the  great  coal-fields  of  West  Virginia  with 
tide-water.  The  route  is  four  hundred  and  forty-three  miles. 
**By  this  line  a  thousand  million  dollars  worth  of  coal  is 
made  available  to  the  world,"  said  a  great  engineer  to  me. 
And  then  he  added,  **It  will  take  twenty  years,  however,  to 
prove  fully  the  truth  of  H.  H.  Rogers'  prophetic  vision." 
This  was  the  herculean  task  of  a  man  in  his  thirties — not  for 
one  approaching  his  seventieth  milestone. 
But  Rogers  built  this  road  alone.  He  constructed  and  equipped 
it  in  a  style  so  complete  that  it  has  set  a  pace  in  railroading. 
You  who  know  the  history  of  railroads  realize  that  the  first 
thing  is  to  get  the  line  through.  Two  streaks  of  rust,  a  tea- 
kettle, and  a  right  of  way  make  a  railroad.  This  allows  you 
to  list  your  bonds.  But  H.  H.  Rogers  neither  had  bonds  nor 
stock  for  sale.  What  other  man  ever  put  forty  millions  of 
money,  and  his  life-blood  into  a  railroad? 
Was  the  work  worth  the  price? 

It  were  vain  to  ask.  The  work  is  done — the  man  is  dead — and 
that  his  death  was  hastened  by  the  work  no  one  can  doubt, 
fl  Rogers  had  the  invincible  heart  of  youth.  He  died  as  he  had 
lived,  always  and  forever  in  the  thick  of  the  fight.  He  had 
that  American  trinity  of  virtues,  pluck,  push  and  perse- 
verance. Courage,  endurance,  energy,  initiative,  ambition, 
industry,  good-cheer,  sympathy  were  his  attributes. 


164 


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FOR    MALE    MAN 


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THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


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you  had  best  experiment  with  a  Bound  Volume  of  "  Little 
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Volume  I.  To  the  Homes  of  Good  Men  and  Great 

Volume  II.  To  the  Homes  of  American  Authors 

Volume  III.  To  the  Homes  of  Famous  Women 

Volume  IV.  To  the  Homes  of  American  Statesmen 

Volume  V.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Painters 

Volume  VI.  To  the  Homes  of  English  Authors 

Volume  VII.  To  the  Homes  of  English  Authors 

Volume  VIII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Musicians 

Volume  IX.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Musicians 

Volume  X.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Artists 

Volume  XI.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Artists 

Volume  XII.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Orators 

Volume  XIII.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Orators 

Volume  XIV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Philosophers 

Volume  XV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Philosophers 

Volume  XVI.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Scientists 

Volume  XVII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Scientists 

Volume  XVIII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Lovers 

Volume  XIX.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Lovers 

Volume  XX.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Reformers 

Volume  XXI.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Reformers 

Volume  XXII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Teachers 

Volume  XXIII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Teachers 

Volume  XXIV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Business  Men 

Volume  XXV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Business  Men 


HE  DOCTORS 


H  Satire    in    7oup    Seizures 


By    ELBERT    HUBBARD 


This  is  a  silly  play,  eliminated  for  relief  of 
the  Author,  and  now  published  for  the 
first  time.  In  the  cast  are  doctors  with 
whiskers,  doctors  clean-shaven,  wise  old 
doctors,  fresh  and  forward  internes,  smart 
young  surgeons,  puffy  family  physicians, 
and  a  specialist  who  has  traveled  far  and 
acknowledges  that  he  knows  nothing.  Of 
course  there  are  nurses  and  pretty 
patients,  also  a  preacher  and  an  obese 
limb  of  the  law^.  Cupid  enters,  for  you 
can't  keep  the  rogue  out  of  even  a  hospital, 
and  all  ends  happily  as  a  play  should. 
^Painfully  illustrated  on  butcher's  paper. 
Bound  in  human  hide,  limp,  lined  with 
iodoform-gauze,  sewed  with  catgut,  and 
flavored  with  formaldehyde.  Price,  $2.00 

p.  S.— Not  being  able  to  get  enough  human  hide  we  are  using 
suede  sheep,  instead. 


The  Roycrofters,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


To  H\\  Roycitofteits 

THE  TIME  for  making  your  Selection 
of  Roycroftie  Christmas  Gifts  IS  NOW 


OEND  today  for  one — or  all  three  of  the 
*^  following  Catalogs:  they  describe  inti- 
mately Roycroft  Books,  Crafts  and  Carpentry 
— and  suggest  many  unique,  exceptional  and 
acceptable  Presents,  at  Purse  Proper  Prices: 


The  Book-Catalog 

The  Puptiitupc-Cataloa 

The  Leatbep-Book 


Holiday  week  for  us,  usually,  carries  an  under- 
tone of  bass  growls  and  shrill  falsettos  from 
lost  souls  who  failed  to  order  their  Roycroft 
goods  for  presents  until  the  day  before  Christ- 
mas. And  then  expected  us  to  get  the  Choice 
Things  to  them  by  Christmas  Morning.  And 
the  moral  is  as  given  :  ORDER   EARLY. 


The  Rovcitoftcits  l^fli^^?i 


AURORA,  COUNTY  OF 
OF  NEW  YORK 


A 


LL  THAT 
I  HAVE 
SEE  N 
TEACHES 
ME  TO  TRUST 
THE  CREATOR 
FOR  WHAT  I 
HAVE   NOT   SEEN 

Ralph    Waldo   Emerson 


Y  COUNTRY 


^u  m 


MUST 

DO  MORE 
I  FOR   ITS 


TEACHERS 


BEFORE     YOU 
CAN    CALL    US 

CIVILIZED 


H  .        H 


ROGERS 


Vol.  25 


DECEMBER,  MCMIX 


No.  5 


LIOI/RriEY^ 


TO  THE  HOW 


sg 


S[gN//HIVHn^^ 


FPi9J-  Fw/ancm 


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Vol.  25 


DECEMBER,  MCMIX 


No.  6 


rrO  THE  hOfSETOT^ 


in/mry^ 


mEmwmE^mn 


EY  ELEERT 


91  He 


NOriF  •  IMTQZS 
ROOK-RY-TFTP 


[SDi 


HE  railroads 


ave    been 


the  greatest 


civilizing    influence 
which  this  old  world 


has  ever  seen— Marshall  Rdd 


Entered  at  tlie  post-office  in  East  Aurora,  New  York,  for  trtmsmission  as  second-class  matter. 
SopyTight,  1009,  by  Elbert  Hubbard,  Bditor  and  Publisher. 


Co  €:f)E  Jf aitfiful 

3N  certain  Universities  there  is  what  is  known  as  the 
Sabbatical  Year.  That  is  to  say,  one  year  in  seven  is 
given  to  the  teacher  or  professor  as  his  own:  this 
for  the  good  of  himself — and  the  school. 
flMr.  Hubbard  has  written  one  Little  Journey  a 
month  for  fifteen  years,  or  in  all  One  Hundred  Eighty  of 
these  biographies  in  tabloid. 

flit  is  believed,  judging  from  the  continued  sale,  and  the 
gradually  growing  demand  from  High  Schools,  Colleges 
and  Libraries,  that  Little  Journeys  will  have  a  permanent 
place  in  the  world's  literature. 

fl Realizing  the  danger  of  the  human  mind  to  run  in 
grooves,  and  the  tendency  of  a  writer  to  do  mental  goose- 
step,  Mr.  Hubbard  proposes  to  take  the  year  Nineteen 
Hundred  Ten  as  a  Sabbatical  Year,  for  the  good  of  him- 
self— and  his  readers. 

flMr.  Hubbard  feels  that  a  leisurely  tour  of  Europe,  amid 
the  sights  and  scenes  of  places  made  sacred  by  the  presence 
of  good  men  and  great — eke  women,  withal — will  obviate 
the  risk^f  a  decline  of  raw  stock  and  recharge  his  cosmic 
carbureter. 

flAnd  this  to  the  end  that  all  those  dear  friends,  whose 
love  and  loyalty  Mr.  Hubbard  so  prizes  and  ever  hopes  that 
he  may  merit,  may  not  have  to  drowse  over  images  poppy- 
strewn  with  the  trite,  sprinkled  with  the  commonplace,  and 
punctured  by  the  obvious. 

flMr.    Hubbard  feels   very  sure    that    he    is  in   sight    of 
Untapped  Reservoirs,  and  the  refined  product  of  these  he 
expects  to  present  to  the  Faithful  in  the  years  to  come. 
flThe  Philistine  and  The  Fra  will  be  continued 
as  heretofore.  These  being  mostly  comments  on 
the  Passing  Show  can  be  written  anywhere, 
amid  the  rush  and  throng,  the  quiet  of  country 
by-roads,  or  those  places  where  the  spirit  of  art 
lingers.  The  intent  is  to  make  these  Magazines 
more  worthy  of  that  select  clientele  which  has 
made  them  possible,  than  ever  before.  flMay  all 
the  good  that  the  Loving  deserve  be  theirs  I 


Offer    Number    Ten 

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This  is  Mr.  Hubbard's  Latest  Book.  Bound  in  boards 

3— ELBERT  HUBBARD'S   BUSINESS  LIBRARY 

Consisting  of  the  following  paper-bound  booklets  : 

A  Message  to  Garcia  The  Cigarettist 

The  Boy  from  Missouri  Valley  Pasteboard  Proclivities 

How  I  Found  My  Brother  The  Roycroft  Shop — A  His- 
Helpful  Hints  for   Business  tory 

Helpers  The  Divine  in  Man 

Get  Out  or  Get  In  Line  Hubbard -Albertson  Debate 

4— AN  AUTOGRAPHED  ETCHING  of  Era  Elbertus 
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the  ei^oluments  and  perquisites  as  per  your  offer. 

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2— TWELVE  BACK  NUMBERS 
OF  THE  PHILISTINE 

To  be  read  and  given  away  as  tracts  to  the  unwashed 
and  unregenerate 

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lo/unrY^ 


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UtiMh-V.I  HII  n 

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pmm^M  ■  V  ■  KT^TTT^^gia 


THE  armed  fleets  of  an  enemy  approaching  our  harbors  would  be 
no  more  alarming  than  the  relentless  advance  of  a  day  when 
we  shall  have  neither  sufficient  food  nor  the  means  to  purchase  it 
for  our  population.  The  farmers  of  the  nation  must  save  it  in  the 
future,  just  as  they  built  its  greatness  in  the  past. — James  J.  Hill. 


JAMES    J.     HILL 


LITTLE    JOURNEYS 


AMES  JEROME  HILL  has  one 
credential,  at  least,  to  greatness — 
he  was  born  in  a  log  house.  But 
let  the  painful  fact  be  stated  at 
once,  without  apology,  that  he 
could  never  be  President  of  the 
United  States,  because  this  historic 
log  house  was  situated  in  Canada. 
^  The  exact  spot  is  about  three 
miles  from  the  village  of  Rock- 
wood,  Wellington  County,  Ontario. 
^  Rockwood  is  seven  miles  East 
of  Guelph,  forty  from  Toronto,  and  a  hundred  from  Buffalo. 
^  Mr.  Hill  well  remembers  his  first  visit  to  Toronto.  He  went 
with  his  father,  with  a  load  of  farm  produce.  It  took  two 
days  to  go  and  two  to  return,  and  for  their  load  they  got 
the  princely  sum  of  seven  dollars,  with  which  they  counted 
themselves  rich. 

James  Hill,  the  father  of  James  Jerome  Hill,  was  a  North  of 
Ireland  man ;  his  wife  was  Anne  Dunbar,  good  and  Scotch.  I 
saw  a  portrait  of  Anne  Dunbar  Hill  in  Mr.  HilPs  residence  at 
St.  Paul,  and  was  also  shown  the  daguerreotype  from  which 
it  was  painted.  It  shows  a  woman  of  decided  personality, 
strong  in  feature,  frank,  fearless,  honest,  sane  and  poised. 
fl  The  dress  reveals  the  columnar  neck  that  goes  only  with 
superb  bodily  vigor — the  nose  is  large,  the  chin  firm,  the 
mouth  strong.  She  looks  like  a  Spartan,  save  for  the  pensive 
eyes  that  gaze  upon  a  world  from  which  she  has  passed, 
hungry  and  wistful.  The  woman  certainly  had  ambition 
and  aspiration,  which  were  unsatisfied. 
James  J.  Hill  is  the  son  of  his  mother.  His  form,  features, 
mental  characteristics  and  ambition  are  the  endowment  of 
mother  to  son. 

165 


JAMES  J.        HILL 

It  was  a  tough  old  farm,  then  as  now.  As  I  tramped  across 
its  undulating  acres,  a  week  ago,  and  saw  the  stone  fences 
and  the  piles  of  glacial  drift,  that  Jim  Hill's  hands  helped 
pick  up,  I  thought  of  the  poverty  of  the  situation  when 
no  railroad  passed  that  way,  and  wheat  was  twenty  cents  a 
bushel,  and  pork  one  cent  a  pound — all  for  lack  of  a  market  I 
qjim  Hill  as  a  boy  fought  the  battle  of  life  with  ax,  hoe, 
maul,  adz,  shovel,  pick,  mattock,  drawshave,  rake  and  pitch- 
fork. Wool  was  carded  and  spun  and  woven  by  hand.  The  grist 
was  carried  to  the  mill  on  horseback,  or  if  the  roads  were 
bad,  on  the  farmer's  back.  All  of  this  pioneer  experience  came 
to  James  J.  Hill  as  a  necessary  part  of  his  education. 
Also,  since  his  ninth  year  he  has  looked  out  upon  the  world 
of  friends  and  foes  with  one  eye,  the  sight  of  the  right  eye 
having  been  destroyed  by  a  playmate  shooting  an  arrow 
into  it.  The  accident  at  the  time  must  have  been  a  terrible 
one,  as  it  knocked  the  eyeball  from  its  socket. 
But  the  eye  was  pushed  back,  and  bandaged  by  a  skilful 
country  doctor,  of  the  good  old-fashioned  kind — say,  Dr. 
Maclure,  told  of  by  Ian  MacLaren. 

"  Will  he  be  able  to  see — will  he  be  able  to  see?  "  asked  the 
anxious  mother. 

"  We  will  know  in  four  weeks,  "  was  the  doctor's  reply. 
The  four  weeks  passed,  and  the  boy  in  the  meantime  was 
quite  the  hero  of  the  vicinity.  Next  to  having  a  sore  toe,  a 
boy  with  a  bandaged  eye  is  distinguished.  Jim  Hill  probably 
had  both,  for  he  never  wore  shoes,  save  in  midwinter,  until 
he  was  fifteen  and  clerked  in  a  store  and  sold  calico,  combs 
and  hairpins — then  he  just  had  to  wear  shoes.  Stone-bruises 
were  the  rule,  and  a  loose  toe-nail,  under  which  the  clover 
caught,  was  no  uncommon  thing. 

And  the  days  rolled  around,  as  the  days  do.  The  four  weeks 
arrived.  The  doctor  came,  removed  the  bandage,  pushed  open 
i66 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

the  lids — and  the  eye  was  sightless.  ^  The  optic  nerve  had 
been  severed  or  severely  shocked. 

The  danger  then  was  that  through  s)nnpathy  the  other 
eye  would  go,  too.  But  the  vigor  of  the  lad  saved  him,  and 
for  over  sixty  years  James  J.  Hill  has  seen  more  with  one 
lamp  than  the  vast  majority  of  men  see  with  two. 
When  this  accident  occurred,  the  good  country  doctor  prom- 
ised to  take  the  lad  into  his  office  and  teach  him  the 
mystery  of  medicine.  That  the  boy  should  be  a  doctor  was 
the  fond  ambition  of  his  mother  until  the  lad  was  fourteen, 
and  even  after.  The  old  doctor  tried  to  soften  things  by  telling 
of  a  blind  doctor  he  knew  who  could  make  a  most  wonderful 
diagnosis,  all  by  the  sense  of  touch. 

James  himself  liked  the  idea  of  being  a  doctor.  He  made  a 
big  stab  at  a  borrowed  Abemathy's  "Anatomy  "  with  his  one 
good  peeper,  evenings,  over  the  kitchen-table.  Even  yet,  if 
you  are  not  careful,  he  will  refer  to  the  tibia  and  fibula  and 
tell  you  of  the  man's  os  coccyx  or  his  alveolar  processes. 
^  Stephen  Girard's  sightless  eye  was  sunken  and  gone,  but 
few,  even  among  those  who  know  Mr.  Hill  well,  realize  his 
physical  disability.  The  eye  appears  all  right,  yet  his  habit  of 
wheeling  full  around  and  facing  the  visitor  makes  you  know 
the  cause  why — after  you  are  told. 

I  once  heard  him  tell  that  story  about  Admiral  Nelson 
when  the  flagship  signaled  the  "  Temeraire "  to  cease 
firing.  An  aide  called  the  attention  of  the  Admiral  to 
the  signal.  He  placed  his  field-glass  to  his  blind  eye  and 
trained  it  in  the  direction  indicated. 

"  I  don't  see  any  signal,  "  he  answered.  "  Keep  firing  until 
you  sink  all  the  enemy  in  range,  or  until  I  tell  you  to  quit.  " 
€[  I  never  knew  Mr.  Hill  to  speak  of  his  blind  eye  to  anybody. 
His  habit  is  to  talk  about  affirmative  things.  Like  that  other 
valiant  Canadian,  Dr.  Richard  Maurice  Bucke  (for  whom 

167 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

Mr.  Hill  always  had  a  great  affection),  who  had  both  feet 
frozen  off,  and  limped  joyously  through  life,  no  word  of 
complaint  escapes  his  lips.  He  has  found  life  good. 
But  his  love  of  beauty  and  color,  and  his  taste  for  art,  have, 
possibly,  been  augmented  by  the  fact  which  he  has  realized 
that  to  him  might  come  a  day  when,  like  Milton,  he  could 
only  look  out  upon  this  fair  old  world  through  the  eyes  of 
another.  For  let  it  be  stated  that  Mr.  Hill  began  to  collect 
pictures  and  gems  when  he  was  a  poor  man,  comparatively, 
and  at  a  time  when  the  money  spent  for  a  ruby  or  a  copy 
of  a  Rubens  was  a  sacrifice. 

Once  in  Mr.  Hill's  presence  I  chanced  to  quote  that  saying 
of  Victor  Hugo,  "  To  be  blind  and  to  be  loved — what  happier 
fate !"  And  the  grizzled  railroad  king  turned,  in  his  quick  and 
abrupt  way,  and  said,  "Eh!  what  *s  that?  I  did  n*t  understand 
you !  Please  say  that  again." 

And  when  I  had  repeated  the  remark,  he  gazed  out  of  the 
car-winddw,  and  said  nothing. 

Life  in  Canada  West  in  the  Forties  was  essentially  the  same 
as  life  in  Western  New  York  at  the  same  period.  The  country 
was  a  forest,  traversed  with  swamps  and  sink-holes,  on 
which  roads  were  built  by  laying  down  long  logs  and  across 
these,  small  logs.  This  formed  the  classic  corduroy  road. 
When  ten  years  of  age  James  Hill  contracted  to  build  a 
mile  of  corduroy  road,  between  his  father's  farm  and  the 
village.  For  this  labor  his  father  promised  him  a  two-year- 
old  colt. 

The  boy  built  the  road  all  right.  It  took  him  six  months,  but 
the  grades  were  easy  and  the  curves  so-so.  The  Tom  Sawyer 
plan  came  in  handy,  otherwise  it  is  probable  there  would 
have  been  a  default  on  the  time-limit.  QAnd  Jim  got  the  colt. 
^He  rode  the  animal  for  half  a  year,  back  and  forth  all  winter, 
from  the  farm  to  the  village,  where  he  attended  the  famous 
i68 


JAMES 


H      I      L 


Rockwood  Academy.  Then  some  one  to  whom  the  elder 
Hill  was  indebted,  signified  a  desire  for  the  colt,  and  the 
father  turned  the  horse  over  to  the  creditor.  When  little  Jim 
went  out  and  found  the  stall  empty  he  had  a  good  cry,  for 
you  can  cry  just  the  same  with  one  good  eye  as  two. 
Three  years  after  this,  when  his  father  died,  he  cried  again, 
and  that  was  the  last  time  he  ever  wept  over  any  of  his  own 
troubles  jt  J^ 


ROM  his  seventh  to  his  fourteenth 
year  young  Jim  Hill  attended  the 
Rockwood  Academy.  This  "  Acad- 
emy "  had  about  thirty  boarding- 
boys  and  a  dozen  day-scholars. 
Jim  Hill  was  a  "  day-scholar,  " 
and  the  pride  of  the  master.  The 
boy  was  studious,  appreciative, 
grateful.  He  was  n*t  so  awfully 
clever,  but  he  was  true. 
The  master  of  the  Academy  was 
Professor  William  Wetherald,  a 
Quaker,  stem  to  view,  but  very  gentle  of  heart.  His  wife  was 
of  the  family  of  Balls.  The  Ball  family  moved  from  Virginia 
two  generations  before,  to  Western  New  York,  and  then  when 
the  Revolutionary  War  was  on,  slid  over  to  Ontario  for 
political  reasons,  best  known  to  themselves. 
There  was  quite  an  emigration  to  Canada  about  then, 
including  those  worthy  Mohawk  Indians  whose  descendants, 
including  Longboat  the  runner  and  the  Princess  Viroqua,  are 
now  to  be  found  in  the  neighborhood  of  Brantford. 

169 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

And  certainly  the  Indians  were  wise,  for  Canada  has  treated 
the  red  brother  with  a  degree  of  fairness  quite  unknown 
on  this  side  of  the  line.  As  for  the  Tories — but  what 's  the 
need  of  arguing! 

The  Balls  trace  to  the  same  family  that  produced  Mary 
Ball,  and  Mary  Ball  was  the  mother  of  George  Washington — 
so  tangled  is  this  web  of  pedigree !  And  George  Washington, 
be  it  known,  got  his  genius  from  his  mother,  not  from  the 
tribe  of  Washington,  fl  William  Wetherald  died  at  an  advanced 
age — near  ninety,  I  believe — only  a  short  time  ago.  It  is  cus- 
tomary for  a  teacher  to  prophesy — after  the  pupil  has  arrived, 
and  declare,  "  What  did  I  tell  you!  " 

Wetherald  looked  after  young  Hill  at  school  with  almost 
a  father*s  affection,  and  prophesied  for  him  great  things — 
only  the  "  great  things  "  were  to  be  in  the  realm  of  science, 
oratory  and  literature. 

Along  about  Eighteen  Hundred  Eighty-eight,  when  James 
J.  Hill  was  getting  his  feet  well  planted  on  the  earth, 
he  sent  for  his  old  teacher  to  come  to  St.  Paul.  Wetherald 
spent  several  weeks  there,  riding  over  the  Hill  roads  in  a 
private  car,  and  discussing  old  times  with  the  owner  of  the 
car  and  the  railroad.  ^  Mr.  Hill  insisted  that  Wetherald  should 
remain  and  teach  the  Hill  children,  but  Fate  said  otherwise. 
fl  There  is  no  doubt  that  Hill*s  love  of  books,  art,  natural 
history,  and  his  habit  of  independent  thought  were  largely 
fixed  in  his  nature  through  the  influence  of  this  fine  Friend, 
teacher  of  children. 

The  Quaker  listens  for  the  "Voice,"  and  then  acts  without 
hunting  up  precedents.  In  other  words,  he  does  the  things 
he  wants  to  do.  ^  Mr.  Hill's  long  hair  and  full  beard  form  a 
sort  of  unconscious  tribute  to  Wetherald. 
In  fact,  let  James  J.  Hill  wear  a  dusty  miller's  suit  and  a 
wide-brimmed  hat  and  you  get  the  true  type  of  "Hicksite.** 
170 


JAMES 


HILL 


^  James  J.  Hill  is  a  score  of  men  in  one,  as  every  great 
man  is.  But  when  the  kindly,  philosophic,  paternal  and 
altruistic  "Yim  Hill "  is  in  the  saddle,  you  will  see  the 
significance  of  this  story:  Just  after  Mr.  Hill  had  gotten 
possession  of  the  Burlington,  he  made  a  trip  over  the  road. 
A  rear-end  flagman  at  Galesburg  was  boasting  to  some  of 
his  mates  about  how  he  had  gone  over  the  division  with 
the  new  "boss  of  the  ranch." 

Here  a  listener  puts  in  a  question,  thus :  "  What  kind  of  a 
lookin'  fellow  is  th*  oV  man?  " 

And  he  of  the  red  lantern  and  torpedoes  scratches  his  head, 
and  explains,  "  Well,  you  see,  it  *s  like  this :  He  looks  like 
Jesus  Christ,  only  he  is  heavier  set!  " 


HE  father  of  James  J.  Hill  was 
a  worthy  man,  with  a  good  hold 
on  the  simple  virtues,  a  weak 
chin,  and  a  cosmos  of  slaty  gray. 
^  His  only  claim  to  immortality 
lies^in  the  fact  that  he  was  the 
father  of  his  son.  Pneumonia 
took  him,  as  it  often  does  the 
physically  strong,  and  he  passed 
out  before  he  had  reached  his 
prime.  "  Death  is  the  most  joy- 
fullest  thing  in  life,  "  said  Thomas 

Carlyle  to  Milbum,  the  blind  preacher,  "  when  it  transfers 

responsibility  to  those  big  enough  to  shoulder  it,  for  that 's 

the  only  way  you  can  make  a  man.  " 

I  once  saw  a  boy  of  fourteen  on  the  prairies  of  Kansas 

171 


JAMES  J  .  HILL 

transformed  into  a  man,  between  the  rising  of  the  sun  and 
its  setting.  His  father  was  crushed  beneath  a  wagon  that 
sluiced  and  toppled  in  crossing  a  gully.  The  hub  caught  the 
poor  man  square  on  the  chest,  and  after  we  got  him  out  he 
never  spoke. 

Six  children  and  the  mother  were  left,  the  oldest  boy  being 
fourteen  ^  ^ 

A  grave  was  dug  there  on  the  prairie  the  next  day,  and  this 
boy  of  fourteen  patted  down  the  earth  over  his  father's 
grave,  with  the  back  of  a  spade.  He  then  hitched  up  the 
horses,  rounded  up  the  cattle,  and  headed  the  cavalcade  for 
the  West.  ^He  was  a  man,  and  in  after-life  he  proved  himself 
one.  ^  On  the  death  of  his  father,  Jim  Hill's  school-days  were 
done.  His  aptitude  in  mathematics,  his  ability  to  keep 
accounts,  and  his  general  disposition  to  make  himself 
useful  secured  him  a  place  in  the  village  store,  which  was 
also  the  Post-office.  His  pay  was  one  dollar  a  week. 
This  training  in  the  country  store  proved  of  great  value, 
just  as  it  did  in  the  case  of  H.  H.  Rogers,  George  Peabody 
and  so  many  other  men  of  mark. 
It  is  one  thing  to  get  a  job,  and  another  to  hold  it. 
Jim  Hill  held  his  job,  and  his  salary  was  raised  before 
the  end  of  the  first  year  to  three  dollars  a  week. 
On  the  strength  of  this  prosperity,  the  struggle  on  the 
old  farm  with  its  stumps,  boulders  and  mortgage  was  given 
up  and  the  widow  moved  her  little  brood  to  town.  The  log 
house,  on  the  rambling  main  street  of  the  village,  is  now 
pointed  out  to  visitors.  Here  the  mother  sewed  for  neighbors, 
took  in  washing,  made  garden,  and  with  the  help  of  her 
boy  Jim,  grew  happy,  and  fairly  prosperous — more  pros- 
perous than  the  family  had  ever  been. 
Thus  matters  went  on  until  Jim  was  in  his  eighteenth  year, 
when  the  wanderlust  got  hold  of  the  young  man.  His  mother 

172 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

saw  it  coming  and  being  wise  did  not  apply  the  brake.  QMan 
is  a  migrating  animal.  To  sit  still  and  stay  in  one  place 
is  to  vegetate. 

Jim  with  twenty  dollars  in  his  pocket  started  for  Toronto 
on  foot  with  a  bundle  on  a  stick,  followed  by  the  prayers  of 
his  mother,  the  gaping  wonder  of  the  children,  and  the 
blessing  of  Professor  Wetherald. 

Toronto  was  interesting,  but  too  near  home  to  think  of  as 
a  permanent  stopping-place.  A  leaky  little  steamer  ran  over 
to  Fort  Niagara  every  other  day.  Jim  took  passage,  reached 
the  foreign  shore,  walked  up  to  Niagara  Falls,  and  the 
next  day  tramped  on  to  Buffalo. 

This  was  in  the  wonderful  year  of  Eighteen  Hundred 
Fifty-six,  the  year  the  Republican  Party  was  born  at  Bloom- 
ington,  Illinois.  It  was  a  time  of  unrest,  of  a  healthy  discon- 
tent and  goodly  prosperity,  for  things  were  in  motion. 
The  docks  at  Buffalo  were  all  a-bustle  with  emigrants 
going  West — forever  West. 

Jim  Hill,  aged  eighteen,  strong,  healthy — ^farmer  boy, 
lumberman,  clerk — shipped  as  roustabout  on  a  schooner 
bound  for  Chicago.  His  pay  for  the  round  trip  was  to  be 
ten  dollars,  and  board,  the  money  payable  when  the  boat 
got  back  to  Buffalo.  If  he  left  the  ship  at  Chicago,  he  was  to 
get  no  cash. 

The  boat  reached  Chicago  in  ten  days.  It  was  a  great  trip — 
full  of  mild  adventure  and  lots  of  things  that  would  have 
surprised  the  folks  at  Rockwood.  Jim  got  a  job  on  the  docks 
as  checker-off,  or  understudy  to  a  freight-clerk.  The  pay 
was  a  dollar  a  day.  He  now  sent  his  original  twenty  dollars 
back  to  his  mother  to  prove  to  her  that  he  was  prosperous 
and  money  was  but  a  bagatelle  and  a  burden. 
A  month,  and  he  had  joined  the  ever-moving  westward  tide. 
He  was  headed  for  California,  the  land  of  shining  nuggets 

173 


JAMES 


J  . 


HILL 


and  rainbow  hopes.  flHe  reached  Rock  Island,  and  saw  a  sign 
out  at  a  sawmill,  "Men  Wanted."  He  knew  the  business  and 
was  given  work  on  sight.  In  a  week  his  mathematics  came  in 
handy  and  he  was  handed  a  lumber-rule  and  blank-book. 
flMr.  Hill  recalls  yet  his  first  sight  of  a  Mississippi  River 
steamboat  coming  into  Davenport.  The  tall  smoke-stacks 
belching  fire,  the  graceful,  swanlike  motion,  the  marvelous 
beauty  of  the  superstructure,  the  wonderful  letter  "D"  in  gold, 
or  something  that  looked  like  gold,  swung  between  the  stacks ! 
Qlt  was  just  dusk,  and  as  the  boat  glided  in  toward  the  shore, 
a  big  torch  was  set  ablaze,  the  gangplank  was  run  out  to 
the  weird  song  of  the  colored  deck-hands,  and  miracle  and 
fairy-land  arrived.  ^  For  a  month  whenever  a  steamboat 
blew  its  siren  whistle,  Jim  was  on  the  wharf,  open-mouthed, 
gaping,  wondering,  admiring.  QOne  day  he  could  stand  it  no 
longer.  He  threw  up  his  job  and  took  passage  on  the  sailing 
palace,  "  Molly  Devine,"  for  Dubuque. 
Here  he  changed  boats,  and  boarded  a  smaller  boat,  a  stern- 
wheeler,  deck  passage  for  St.  Paul,  a  point  which  seemed  to 
the  young  man  somewhere  near  the  North  Pole. 
He  was  going  to  get  his  fill  of  steamboat  riding  for  once.  It 
was  his  intention  to  remain  at  St.  Paul  a  couple  of  days,  see 
St.  Anthony's  Falls  and  Minnehaha,  and  then  take  the  same 
boat  back  down  the  River. 
But  something  induced  him  to  change  his  plans. 


174 


JAMES 


J  . 


HILL 


HE  two  days  on  the  steamboat 
had  wearied  Jim.  The  prenatal 
Scotch  idea  of  industry  was  upon 
him,  and  conscience  had  begun 
to  squirm.  He  applied  for  work  as 
soon  as  he  walked  out  on  the 
levee.  The  place  was  the  office  of 
the  steamboat  company.  He  stated 
in  an  offhand  way  that  he  had  had 
experience  on  the  water-front  in 
Chicago,  Rock  Island  and  Daven- 
port .^  ,^ 

He  was  hired  on  the  spot  as  shipping-clerk  with  the  gratuitous 
remark,  "  If  you  have  n*t  sense  enough  to  figure,  you  are 
surely  strong  enough  to  hustle. " 

The  agents  of  the  steamboat  line  were  J.  W.  Bass  &  Company. 
Hill  got  along  all  right.  He  was  day-clerk  or  night-clerk, 
just  as  the  boats  came  in.  And  it  is  wonderful  how  steamboats 
on  the  Mississippi  usually  arrive  at  about  two  o'  clock  in 
the  morning. 

Jim  slept  on  a  cot  in  the  office,  so  as  to  be  on  hand  when  a 
boat  arrived  and  to  help  unload.  Now,  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
shipping-clerk  to  check  off  the  freight  as  it  was  brought 
ashore.  Also,  it  was  the  law  of  steamboating  that  clerks 
took  their  meals  on  board  the  boat,  if  they  were  helping  to 
unload  her.  Now  as  Jim  had  food  and  a  place  to  sleep  when 
a  Dubuque  and  St.  Paul  steamboat  was  tied  at  the  levee,  all 
the  meals  he  had  to  buy  were  those  when  no  steamboat 
was  in  sight. 

Being  essentially  Scotch,  Jim  managed  to  time  his  meals  so 
as  to  last  over.  And  sometimes  if  a  boat  was  stuck  on  a 
sand-bar  he  did  the  MacFadden  act  for  a  whole  day.  It  be- 
came a  sort  of  joke  in  the  office,  and  we  hear  of  Mr.  Bass, 

175 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

the  agent)  shouting  up  to  the  pilot-house  of  a  steamboat, 
"  Avast  there,  sir,  for  five  minutes  until  Jim  Hill  stows  his 
hold.  "  ^  ^ 

A  part  of  Jim*s  work  was  to  get  wood  for  fuel  for  the  boats. 
This  was  quite  a  business  in  itself.  He  once  got  a  big  lot  of 
fuel  and  proudly  piled  it  on  the  levee,  mountain-high,  in 
anticipation  of  several  steamboats. 

A  freshet  came  one  night,  the  river  rose,  and  carried  off 
every  stick,  so  that  when  the  "  Mary  Ann  "  arrived  there 
was  no  fuel. 

"  Wait  until  Jim  Hill  eats  his  breakfast  and  perhaps  he  *11 
get  an  armful  of  wood  for  us,  "  shouted  down  the  captain 
in  derision. 

After  that,  Jim  managed  to  load  up  a  flatboat  or  two,  and 
always  had  a  little  wood  in  reserve.  ^  The  young  man  was 
now  fairly  launched  in  business.  The  mystery  of  manifest- 
ing, billing,  collecting;  the  matter  of  "shorts,"  "overs," 
and  figuring  damages  were  to  him  familiar. 
The  Territory  of  Minnesota  was  organized  in  Eighteen 
Hundred  Forty-nine,  and  did  not  become  a  State  until 
Eighteen  Hundred  Fifty-eight.  In  Eighteen  Hundred  Fifty- 
seven  there  was  not  a  single  mile  of  railway  in  the  Terri- 
tory. But  in  that  year.  Congress  authorized  the  Territory 
to  give  alternate  sections  of  public  lands  to  any  company 
that  would  build  a  railway  through  them. 
Through  this  stimulus,  in  the  latter  part  of  Eighteen  Hundred 
Fifty-seven,  there  was  organized  a  company  with  the 
ambitious  title  of  "  The  Minnesota  and  Pacific  Railroad 
Company.  "  Its  line  extended  from  the  steamboat-wharf  in 
St.  Paul  to  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony.  There  were  ten  miles 
of  track,  including  sidings,  one  engine,  two  box  cars,  and 
a  dozen  flat  cars  for  logs. 

The  railroad  didn't  seem  to  thrive.  There  was  no  paying 
176 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

passenger  traffic  to  speak  of.  Passengers  got  aboard  all  right, 
but  on  being  pressed  for  fares  they  felt  insulted  and  jumped 
off,  just  as  you  would  now  if  you  got  a  ride  with  a  farmer 
and  he  asked  you  to  pay.  Possibly,  a  rudimentary  disincli- 
nation to  pay  fare  still  remains  in  most  of  us,  like  the 
hereditary  indisposition  of  the  Irish  to  pay  rent.  ^  No  one 
then  ever  thought  it  possible  that  a  railroad  could  compete 
with  a  steamboat,  and  it  was  a  long  time  after  this  before 
Commodore  Vanderbilt  had  the  temerity  to  build  a  railroad 
along  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  and  was  called  a  lunatic. 
flSo  there  being  no  passenger  traffic,  the  farmers  carrying 
their  grists  to  mill,  and  the  logs  being  jfloated  down  the  river 
to  the  mills,  the  railroad  was  in  a  bad  way. 
Something  had  to  be  done,  so  the  Minnesota  and  Pacific 
was  reorganized  and  a  new  road,  the  St.  Paul  and  Pacific, 
bought  it  out,  with  all  of  its  land  grants.  The  intent  of  the 
new  road  was  to  strike  right  up  into  the  woods  for  ten  or 
twenty  miles  above  Minneapolis  and  bring  down  logs  that 
otherwise  would  have  to  be  hauled  to  the  river. 
For  a  time  this  road  paid,  with  the  sale  of  the  odd-numbered 
sections  of  land  that  went  with  it. 

In  Eighteen  Hundred  Sixty-seven,  James  J.  Hill  became 
the  St.  Paul  agent  of  this  railroad.  He  had  quit  his  job  with 
J.  W.  Bass,  to  become  agent  for  the  Northwestern  Packet 
Line,  and  as  the  railroad  ran  right  to  his  door  he  found  it 
easy  to  serve  both  the  steamboat  company  and  the  railroad. 
^  You  will  often  hear  people  tell  about  how  James  J.  Hill 
began  his  railroad  career  as  a  station-agent,  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  he  was  a  station-agent,  plus.  The  agents  of 
steamboat-lines  in  those  days  were  usually  merchants  or 
men  who  were  financially  responsible.  ^  And  James  J.  Hill 
became  the  St.  Paul  agent  of  the  St.  Paul  and  Pacific  because 
he  was  a  man  of  resource,  with  ability  to  get  business  for 

177 


JAMES 


HILL 


the  railroad.  ^  As  the  extraordinary  part  of  Mr.  Hill's  career 
did  not  begin  until  he  was  forty  years  of  age,  our  romantic 
friends  who  write  of  him  often  picture  him  as  a  failure  up 
to  that  time.  ^  The  fact  is,  he  was  making  head  and  gath- 
ering gear  right  along.  These  twenty-two  years,  up  to  the  time 
he  became  a  railroad  owner,  were  years  of  intense  activity. 


HILE  yet  a  clerk  for  J.  W.  Bass 
&  Company,  Mr.  Hill  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Norman  Kittson,  as 
picturesque  a  figure  as  ever  wore 
a  coonskin  cap,  and  evolved  from 
this  to  all  the  refinements  of  Pic- 
cadilly, only  to  discard  these  and 
return  to  the  Simple  Life. 
Kittson  had  been  connected  with 
the  Hudson  Bay  Company.  When 
Hill  met  him,  he  was  running  a 
fast  express  to  Fort  Garry,  now 
Winnipeg,  going  over  the  route  with  ox-carts.  In  summer 
it  took  one  month  to  go,  and  the  same  to  return.  In  winter 
dog-sleds  were  used  and  the  trip  was  made  more  quickly, 
q  Kittson  was  the  inventor  and  patentee  of  the  Red  River 
Ox-cart.  It  was  a  vehicle  made  of  wood,  save  for  the  linch- 
pins. The  wheels  were  enormous,  some  being  ten  feet  in 
diameter.  It  was  Kittson's  theory  that  if  you  could  make 
your  wheel  high  enough  it  would  eliminate  friction  and  run 
of  its  own  momentum.  The  wheels  were  made  by  boring 
and  pinning  plank  on  plank,  criss-cross,  and  then  chalking 
off  with  a  string  from  the  center.  Then  you  sawed  out  your 
178 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

wheel,  and  there  you  were.  flThe  creaking  of  a  train  of 
these  ox-carts  could  be  heard  five  miles.  Kittson  had  the 
government  contract  for  carrying  the  mails,  and  managed, 
with  the  help  of  trading  in  furs  and  loading  up  with  mer- 
chandise on  his  own  account,  to  make  considerable  money. 
qWhen  Hill  was  in  his  twenties  he  went  over  the  route  with 
Kittson,  and  made  several  trips,  also,  for  his  friend  alone 
with  dog-sleds,  when  there  was  a  rush  of  freight. 
On  one  such  occasion  he  had  one  companion,  a  half-breed, 
of  uncertain  character,  but  who  was  taken  along  as  a  guide, 
he  being  familiar  with  the  route.  It  was  midwinter,  the  snow 
was  heavy  and  deep,  there  were  no  roads,  and  much  of  the 
way  led  over  frozen  lakes  and  along  streams.  To  face  the 
blizzards  of  that  country,  alone,  at  that  time  required  the 
courage  of  the  seasoned  pioneer. 

Hill  did  n*t  much  like  the  looks  of  his  companion.  And  after 
a  week  out,  when  the  fellow  suggested  their  heading  for 
Lake  Superior,  and  dividing  their  cargo.  Hill  became  alarmed. 
The  man  was  persistent  and  inclined  to  be  quarrelsome. 
Each  man  had  a  knife  and  a  rifle. 

Hill  waited  until  they  reached  a  high  ridge.  The  snow  lay 
dazzling  white  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  The  nearest 
habitation  was  fifty  miles  away. 

Under  pretense  of  fixing  the  harness  on  his  dogs  Jim  got 
about  forty  feet  from  his  man,  quickly  cocked  his  rifle  and 
got  a  bead  on  the  half-breed  before  the  fellow  knew  what 
was  up.  At  the  word  of  command  the  rogue  dropped  his 
rifle  and  held  up  his  hands.  ^  The  next  order  was  to  right 
— about — face — march!  The  order  was  obeyed. 
On  account  of  his  blind  right  eye,  Jim  used  a  rifle  left-handed, 
but  he  was  a  sure  shot  and  a  quick  one.  ^  The  half-breed 
knew  all  this. 

A  double-quick  was  ordered,  and  the  half-breed  lit  out, 

179 


JAMES 


HILL 


quickening  his  pace  as  he  got  out  of  range.  Q  Hill  then 
picked  up  the  other  rifle,  put  whip  to  his  dogs,  and  by  night 
had  gone  so  far  that  he  could  not  be  overtaken.  flWhen  Jim 
came  back  that  way  a  few  weeks  later,  he  kept  his  one  critical 
eye  peeled  for  danger,  but  he  never  saw  his  friend  again. 
^  When  I  heard  Mr.  Hill  relate  this  story  he  told  it  as  simply 
as  he  might  relate  how  he  went  out  to  milk  the  cows. 
One  of  the  men  present  asked,  "  Did  n*t  you  feel  sorry  for 
the  fellow,  to  turn  him  adrift  on  that  frozen  plain,  without 
food  or  fuel?  "  ^  Mr.  Hill  hesitated,  and  slowly  answered, 
"  I  thought  of  that,  but  preferred  to  send  him  adrift  rather 
than  to  kill  him,  or  let  him  kill  me.  And  anjrway  he  had  only 
fifty  miles  to  travel  in  order  to  strike  an  Indian  village.  And 
when  he  was  there  we  were  just  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
apart.  You  see  I  am  a  mathematician.  It  is  a  great  joy  to 
figure  out  what  a  long  distance  you  are  from  some  folks." 


N  his  business  of  supplying  cord- 
wood  to  steamboats,  Mr.  Hill  had 
a  partner,  grizzled  and  gray,  by 
the  name  of  Griggs.  Griggs  was  a 
typical  pioneer — always  moving 
on.  He  bought  a  little  stem-wheel 
steamboat,  and  shipped  its  boiler 
and  engine  across  to  Breckinridge, 
where  he  had  the  joy  of  running 
the  first  steamboat,  "  The  North- 
west, "  on  the  Red  River. 
Mr.  Hill  built  the  second  steamboat 
on  the  Red  River,  "  The  Swallow,  "  on  the  order  of  Kittson, 
i8o 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

who  bought  the  boat  as  soon  as  she  had  shown  her  ability 
to  run.  All  the  metal  used  in  its  making,  which  of  course 
included  engine  and  boiler,  was  sent  across  from  St.  Paul. 
^  And  if  the  outfit  was  gotten  out  of  a  wrecked  Mississippi 
stem-wheeler,  what  boots  it  I 

Then  it  was  that  Kittson,  having  also  bought  the  Griggs 
steamboat,  was  given  the  title  of  Commodore,  a  distinction 
which  he  carried  through  life. 

By  this  time  several  things  had  happened.  One  was  that 
Hill  had  brought  up  to  St.  Paul  a  steamboat-load  of  coal. 
q  This  coal  was  mined  near  Peoria,  on  the  Illinois  River, 
floated  down  to  the  Mississippi,  then  carried  up  to  St.  Paul. 
To  bring  coal  to  this  Newcastle  of  wood  was  regarded  as 
deliberate  folly. 

By  this  time  the  St.  Paul  and  Pacific  had  gotten  a  track  laid 
clear  through  to  Breckinridge,  so  as  to  connect  with  Com- 
modore Kittson's  steamboats.  When  Hill  first  reached  St. 
Paul  there  was  no  agriculture  North  of  that  point.  The 
wheat-belt  still  lingered  around  Northern  Illinois  and 
Southern  Wisconsin.  The  fact  that  seeds  can  be  acclimated, 
like  men  and  animals,  was  still  in  the  ether. 
The  Red  River  Valley  is  a  wonderfully  rich  district.  Louis 
Agassiz  first  mapped  it,  and  wrote  a  most  interesting  essay 
on  it.  Here  was  a  wonderful  prehistoric  lake,  draining  to 
the  South  through  the  Minnesota  and  Mississippi  Rivers, 
and  thence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  By  a  volcanic  rise  of  the 
land  on  the  Southern  end,  centuries  ago,  the  current  was 
turned  and  ran  North,  making  what  we  call  the  Red  River, 
emptying  into  Lake  Winnipeg,  which  in  turn  has  an  outlet 
into  Hudson  Bay. 

Agassiz  came  up  the  Mississippi  River  on  a  trip  in  Eighteen 
Hundred  Sixty-five.  The  boat  he  traveled  on  was  one 
for  which  James  J.  Hill  was  agent.  Naturally,  it  devolved 

i8x 


JAMES 


I      L      L 


on  Hill  to  show  the  visitors  the  sights  thereabouts.  And 
among  these  sights  happened  to  be  our  friend  Kittson,  who 
full  of  enthusiasm  offered  to  pilot  the  party  across  to  the 
Red  River.  They  accepted  and  ascended  to  Fort  Garry. 
Agassiz,  full  of  scientific  enthusiasm,  wrote  out  his  theory 
about  the  prehistoric  lake.  And  science,  now,  the  world  over, 
calls  the  Red  River  Valley,  "Lake  Agassiz."  With  Louis 
Agassiz  was  his  son  Alexander,  a  fine  young  man  with 
pedagogic  bent,  headed  for  his  father's  place  as  Curator  of 
the  Museum  at  Harvard.  ^  From  Winnipeg  the  party  was 
supplied  an  Indian  guide,  who  took  them  across  to  Lake 
Superior.  Then  it  was  that  Alexander  Agassiz  saw  the 
wonders  of  Lake  Superior  copper  and  Lake  Superior  iron. 
And  Harvard  lost  a  professor,  but  the  world  gained  a  multi- 
millionaire. Louis  Agassiz  had  no  time  to  make  money, 
but  his  son  Alexander  was  not  thus  handicapped. 
The  report  of  Agassiz  on  the  mineral  wealth  of  Lake  Superior 
corroborated  Mr.  Hill's  own  opinions  of  this  country,  which 
he  had  traversed  with  dog-sleds.  Money  was  scarce,  but  he, 
even  then,  made  a  small  investment  in  Lake  Superior 
mineral  lands,  and  has  been  increasing  it  ever  since.  A 
recent  present  to  the  stockholders  of  the  Great  Northern  of 
an  iron  tract  worth  many  millions,  had  its  germ  in  that 
memorable  day  when  he  met  the  Agassiz  party  on  the  levee  in 
St.  Paul,  and  unconsciously  changed  their  route  as  planned. 


182 


JAMES 


J  • 


HILL 


HERE  are  two  ways  for  a  traveling 
man  to  make  money:  One  is  to 
sell  the  goods,  and  the  other  [is 
to  work  the  expense  account. 
There  are  two  ways  to  make 
money  by  managing  a  railroad : 
One  is  through  service  to  the 
people  along  the  line  of  the  road; 
the  other  is  through  working  the 
bondholders  J^  jt 
It  was  the  eventful  year  of 
Eighteen  Hundred  Seventy-six, 
really  got  up   steam.  He  was  then 


before  James  J.  Hill 
thirty-eight  years  old. 

He  was  agent  of  the  St.  Paul  and  Pacific,  and  in  this  capacity 
he  had  seen  that  the  road  was  being  run  with  the  idea  of 
making  money  by  milking  the  bondholders. 
The  line  had  been  pushed  just  as  long  as  the  bondholders  of 
Holland  would  put  up  money.  To  keep  things  going,  interest 
had  been  paid  to  the  worthy  Dutch  out  of  the  money  they 
had  supplied.  Gradually,  the  phlegmatic  ones  grew  wise,  and 
the  purse-strings  of  the  Netherlanders  closed.  For  hundreds 
of  years  Holland  had  sought  a  quick  Northwest  passage  to 
India.  Little  did  she  know  she  was  now  warm  on  the  trail. 
^  Little,  also,  did  Jim  Hill  know. 

The  equipment — engines  and  cars — was  borrowed,  so  when 
the  receiver  was  appointed  he  found  only  the  classic  streak 
of  rust  and  right  of  way.  No  doubt  both  of  these  would  have 
been  hypothecated  if  it  were  possible.  ^  Mr.  Hill  knew  the 
Northwest  as  no  other  man  did,  excepting,  possibly,  Norman 
Kittson.  He  had  traversed  the  country  from  St.  Paul  to 
Winnipeg  on  foot,  by  ox-carts,  on  horseback,  by  dog-sledges. 
He  had  seen  it  in  all  seasons  and  under  all  conditions.  He 

»83 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

knew  the  Red  River  Valley  would  raise  wheat,  and  he 
knew  that  the  prosperity  of  old  Lake  Agassiz  meant  the 
prosperity  of  the  railroad  that  ran  between  that  rich  valley 
and  St.  Anthony's  Falls,  where  the  great  flouring-mills  were 
situated,  the  center  of  the  flour  zone  having  been  shifted 
from  Rochester,  New  York,  to  Minneapolis,  Minnesota  jt 
To  gain  possession  of  the  railroad  and  run  it  so  as  to  build  up 
the  country,  and  thus  prosper  as  the  farmers  prospered, 
was  his  ambition.  He  was  a  farmer  by  prenatal  tendency  and 
by  education,  a  commission  man  by  chance,  and  a  master 
of  transportation  by  instinct.  Every  farmer  should  be 
interested  in  good  roads,  for  his  problem  is  quite  as  much  to 
get  his  products  to  market  as  to  raise  them.  Jim  Hill  focussed 
on  getting  farm  products  to  market.  While  he  was  a  Cana- 
dian by  birth,  he  had  now  become  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States.  His  old  friend,  Commodore  Kittson,  was  a  Canadian 
by  birth,  and  never  got  beyond  taking  out  his  first  papers. 
The  Winnipeg  agent  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  was 
Donald  Alexander  Smith,  a  hardy  Scotch  burr  of  a  man, 
with  many  strong  and  sturdy  oatmeal  virtues.  He  had  gone 
with  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  as  a  laborer,  became  a 
guide,  a  trader,  and  then  an  agent.  Hill  and  Kittson  laid 
before  Smith  a  plan,  very  plain,  very  simple.  Buy  up  the 
bonds  of  the  St.  Paul  and  Pacific  from  the  Dutch  bondholders, 
foreclose,  and  own  the  railroad! 

Now,  Donald  A.  Smith's  connection  with  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company  gave  him  a  standing  in  Montreal  banking  circles, 
and  to  be  trusted  by  Montreal  is  to  have  the  ear  of  London. 
^  Donald  A.  Smith  went  down  to  Montreal  and  laid  the  plan 
before  George  Stephen,  manager  of  the  Bank  of  Montreal. 
If  the  Bank  of  Montreal  endorsed  a  financial  scheme  it  was 
a  go.  Only  one  thing  seemed  to  lie  in  the  way — the  willing- 
ness of  the  bondholders  to  sell  out  at  a  figure  which  our  four 
184 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

Canadians  could  pay.  Mr.  Hill  was  for  going  to  Holland,  and 
interviewing  the  bondholders,  personally.  ^  Stephen,  more 
astute  in  big  finance,  said,  bring  them  over  here.  Hill  could 
not  fetch  them,  Kittson  could  n*t  and  Donald  A.  Smith 
could  n't,  because  there  was  no  dog-sled  line  to  Amsterdam. 
qihe  Bank  of  Montreal  did  the  trick,  and  a  committee  of 
Dutchmen  arrived  to  look  over  their  Minnesota  holdings 
with  a  view  of  selling  out.  Mr.  Hill  took  them  over  the  line — 
a  dreary  waste  of  slashings,  then  a  wide  expanse  of  prairie, 
broken  now  and  again  by  scrub-oak  and  hazel-groves; 
deep  gulleys  here  and  there — swamps,  sloughs,  and  ponds, 
with  assets  of  brant,  wild  geese,  ducks  and  sand-hill  cranes. 
^  The  road  was  in  bad  shape — the  equipment  worse.  An 
inventory  of  the  actual  property  was  taken  with  the  help  of 
the  Dutch  Committee.  ^The  visiting  Hollanders  made  a 
report  to  the  bondholders,  advising  sale  of  the  bonds  at 
an  average  of  about  forty  per  cent  of  their  face  value, 
which  is  what  the  inventory  showed. 
Our  Canadian  friends  secured  an  option  which  gave  them 
time  to  turn.  Farley,  the  Receiver,  was  willing.  The  road 
was  reorganized  as  the  St.  Paul,  Minneapolis  and  Manitoba 
Railroad.  George  Stephen  was  President,  Norman  Kittson 
First  Vice-President,  Donald  A.  Smith  Second  Vice-President, 
and  James  J.  Hill  General  Manager.  ^  And  on  Mr.  Hill  fell 
the  burden  of  turning  a  losing  property  into  a  prosperous 
and  paying  one.  From  the  very  day  that  he  became  manager 
he  breathed  into  the  business  the  breath  of  life. 
He  advertised  the  railroad  lands  at  a  price  and  on  terms 
that  were  attractive  to  settlers.  There  are  two  ways  of  making 
railroad  rates — one  is  based  on  the  cost  of  transportation, 
including  overhead  and  terminal  charges;  and  the  other  is 
simply  based  on  the  idea  of  moving  the  tonnage.  Hill  made 
rates  that  caught  the  home-seekers.  He  figured  that  if  the 

185 


JAMES 


J  . 


HILL 


country  could  be  populated  with  prosperous  people,  the 
rest  was  easy. 

He  sent  over  to  England  and  bought  hundreds  of  young 
Hereford  bulls,  and  distributed  them  along  the  line  of  the 
road  among  the  farmers.  "  Jim  Hill's  bulls  "  are  pointed 
out  now,  over  three  thousand  miles  of  range,  and  jokes  on 
how  Hill  bulled  the  market  are  always  in  order.  Clydesdale 
horses  were  sent  out  on  low  prices  and  long-time  payments. 
^  Farm-seeds,  implements  and  lumber  were  put  within  the 
reach  of  any  man  who  really  wanted  to  get  on  ^  And  lo !  the 
land  prospered  Jt>  The  waste  places  were  made  green,  and  the 
desert  blossomed  like  the  rose  ^  Illinois,  Iowa  and  Wiscon- 
sin had  quit  wheat  and  turned  to  corn-growing.  Minnesota 
was  coming  into  her  own — the  tide  of  immigration  was 
pushing  over  the  North  and  West.  It  was  the  psychologic 
moment — time  and  tide  had  joined  hands  with  James  J. 
Hill  in  order  that  he  might  build  an  empire. 


HE  financial  blizzard  of  Eighteen 
Hundred  Seventy-three  was,  with- 
out doubt,  an  important  factor  in 
letting  down  the  bars,  so  that 
James  J.  Hill  could  come  to  the 
front  ^  t^ 

The  River  Valley  at  that  time  was 
not  shipping  a  bushel  of  wheat. 
^  The  settlers  were  just  taking 
care  of  their  own  wants,  and 
were  feeding  the  Lady  of  the 
Snows  up  North  around  Winnipeg. 


i86 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

We  now  know  that  the  snows  of  the  Lady  of  the  Snows 
are  mostly  mythical.  She  is  supplying  her  own  food,  and  we 
are  looking  toward  her  with  envious  eyes. 
In  the  year  Nineteen  Hundred  Nine,  just  passed,  the  two 
Dakotas  and  Minnesota  produced  over  two  hundred  million 
bushels  of  wheat — worth,  say,  a  dollar  a  bushel.  And  when 
wheat  is  a  dollar  a  bushel  the  farmers  are  buying  pianolas. 
qXhe  "  Jim  Hill  Country"  East  of  the  Rockies  is  producing, 
easily,  over  five  hundred  million  dollars  a  year  in  food 
products  that  are  sent  to  the  East  for  market. 
The  first  time  I  saw  Mr.  Hill  was  in  Eighteen  Hundred 
Eighty.  He  was  surely  a  d3mamo  of  nervous  energy.  His 
full  beard  was  tinged  with  gray,  his  hair  was  worn  long, 
and  he  looked  like  a  successful  ranchman,  with  an  Omar 
Khayyam  bias.  That  he  has  n*t  painted  pictures,  like  Sir 
William  Van  Home,  and  thus  put  that  worthy  to  shame,  is 
to  me  a  marvel. 

Working  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Hill,  as  Railroad  Super- 
intendent, at  this  time  was  Allan  Manvel,  who  was  hands 
and  feet  and  eyes  for  Hill.  Allan  was  Scotch,  of  course.  He 
could  take  orders  and  give  them.  I  remember  of  Mr.  Hill 
once  passing  him  out  some  Billy  Muldoon  vocabulary,  and 
Allan  handing  it  back  with  compound  interest,  but  going 
right  along  and  doing  the  thing  just  as  he  was  told.  Allan 
graduated — "  One  of  us  had  to  go,  "  said  Jim. 
Manvel  became  President  of  the  Santa  Fe,  and  a  kind  of 
foster-father  to  that  very  able  man,  Paul  Morton,  who  was 
a  Vice-President  of  the  Santa  Fe  before  President  Roosevelt 
invited  him  into  his  Cabinet. 

Hill  has  been  an  educator  of  men.  He  even  supplied  Donald 
A.  Smith  a  few  business  thrills.  ^  "  Tomorrow  night  I  intend 
to  entertain  the  Governor,"  once  said  Smith  to  Hill. 
"  Tomorrow  night  you  will  be  on  the  way  to  Europe  to 

187 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

borrow  money  for  me,"  said  Hill.  And  it  was  so.  fl  First  and 
foremost,  James  J.  Hill  is  a  farmer.  He  thinks  of  himself 
as  following  a  plow,  milking  cows,  salting  steers,  shoveling 
out  ear-corn  for  the  pigs.  He  can  lift  his  voice  and  call  the 
cattle  from  a  mile  away — and  does  at  times. 
He  bought  a  section  of  Red  River  railroad  land  from  himself 
and  put  it  in  his  wife's  name.  The  land  was  swampy,  covered 
with  swale,  and  the  settlers  had  all  passed  it  up  as  worthless. 
^  Mr.  Hill  cut  the  swale,  tiled  the  land,  and  grew  a  crop  that 
put  the  farmers  to  shame. 

He  then  started  a  tile-factory  in  the  vicinity,  and  sold  it  to 
the  managers — two  young  fellows  from  the  East — as  soon 
as  they  proved  that  they  had  the  mental  phosphorus  and 
the  commercial  jamake. 

The  agricultural  schools  have  always  interested  Mr.  Hill. 
^  That  which  brings  a  practical  return  and  makes  men 
self-supporting  and  self-reliant  is  his  eternal  hobby.  Four 
years  in  college  is  to  him  too  much — "You  can  get  what 
you  want  in  a  year,  or  not  at  all,  "  he  says.  He  has  sent 
hundreds  of  farmers'  boys  to  the  agricultural  colleges  for 
short  teims.  Imagine  what  this  means  to  boys  who  have 
been  born  on  a  farm  and  have  never  been  off  it — to  get 
the  stimulus  of  travel,  lectures,  books,  and  new  sights  and 
scenes!  In  this  work,  often  the  boys  did  not  know  who 
their  benefactor  was.  The  money  was  supplied  by  some 
man  in  the  near-by  town — that  was  all.  These  boys, 
inoculated  at  Mr.  Hill's  expense  with  the  education 
microbe,  have  often  been  a  civilizing  leaven,  in  new 
communities  in  the  Dakotas,  Montana  and  Washington. 
§In  Eighteen  Hundred  Eighty-eight  the  St.  Paul,  Min- 
neapolis and  Manitoba  became  a  part  of  the  Great  Northern. 
^  Hill  had  reached  out  beyond  the  wheat  country  into  the 
arid  zone,  which  was  found  to  be  not  nearly  so  arid  as  we 
i88 


J      A      M      E 


HILL 


thought.  The  Black  Angus  and  the  White-faced  Herefords 
followed,  and  where  once  were  only  scattering  droves  of 
skinny  pintos,  now  were  to  be  seen  shaggy-legged  Shire 
horses,  and  dappled  Percherons. 

The  bicycle  had  come  and  also  the  trolley-car,  and  Calamity 
Jake  prophesied  that  horses  would  soon  be  valuable, 
only,  for  feeding  Frenchmen.  But  Jacob  was  wrong.  Good 
horses  steadily  increased  in  value.  And  today,  in  spite  of 
automobiles  and  aeroplanes,  the  prices  of  horses  have 
aviated.  Jim  HilPs  railroads,  this  last  year,  hauled  over 
three  hundred  thousand  horses  out  of  Montana  to  the 
Eastern  States. 


AILROADING  reduced  to  its  lowest 
terms  means  cost  of  moving  one 
ton  of  freight  one  mile — this  is 
the  unit  of  measurement. 
Mr.  HilPs  ambition  is  to  get  this 
cost  down  to  the  lowest  point  that 
will  allow  returns,  namely:  First, 
payment  of  wages  and  for  material 
to  keep  up  the  road.  Second,  interest 
on  bonded  indebtedness.  Third, 
dividends  (reasonable)  on  the  cap- 
ital stock  of  the  road. 
Railroad  men  for  years  strove  to  get  moving  cost  down  to  one 
cent  per  ton  per  mile — that  was  their  goal.  Four  years  ago 
Mr.  Hill  got  it  down  to  791-1000  cent,  and  a  year  later 
reduced  it  to  749-1000  cent — less  than  three-fourths  of  a  cent 
for  hauling  two  thousand  pounds  one  mile.  This  is  his  triumph. 

189 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

^The  development  of  this  prairie  country  never  could  have 
been  made  so  quickly  without  cheap  lumber.  The  forests  of 
Michigan  were  about  exhausted  by  Eighteen  Hundred  Eighty- 
five  ;  Wisconsin  in  the  Nineties ;  and  Minnesota  soon  followed. 
The  demand  for  lumber  in  North  Dakota  could  not  be  supplied 
from  the  East.  The  South  was  out  of  the  question — you  can 
not  get  freight  to  move  easily  along  parallels  of  longitude ; 
it  always  seeks  latitude,  the  same  as  man  in  his  migrations. 
^  On  the  completion  of  the  Great  Northern  Railroad  to  the 
Pacific  tidewater — say  in  February,  Eighteen  Hundred 
Ninety-two — Mr.  Hill  announced  a  rate  of  forty  cents  per 
one  hundred  pounds  on  lumber  from  Washington  mills  to 
St.  Paul  -  Minneapolis  —  say  two  thousand  miles  or  less — 
at  a  cost  of  eight  dollars  a  ton.  This  means  two-fifths  of  one 
cent  per  ton  per  mile.  It  had  to  be  hauled  over  two  mountain- 
ranges,  and  across  semi-arid  plains,  and  miles  of  alkali-lands 
that  furnished  no  coal  for  steam,  nor  water  fit  for  boiler  use. 
^  This  was  a  tremendous  cut,  and  it  made  the  Northern 
Pacific  squirm.  How  could  he  do  it?  The  secret  was  railroad 
passes  in  the  mountains  at  lower  elevation  than  any  compet- 
itor, easy  grades  all  along  the  line,  thousands,  yes  hundreds 
of  thousands,  of  dollars  spent  in  changing  grades  from,  say, 
eight-tenths  to  six-tenths  per  cent. 

The  highest  point  on  the  Great  Northern  Railroad  in  the 
Rockies  is  five  thousand  two  hundred  six  feet — less  than 
one  mile  above  sea-level  J^  No  other  transcontinental  line 
has  an  elevation  so  low  Jk  Crow's  Nest  Pass  in  the  Cana- 
dian Rockies  is  less,  but  is  as  yet  used  only  by  the  Canadian 
Pacific  Railroad  into  Spokane.  Mr.  Hill  has  a  track  through 
the  same  pass,  and  also  easier  grades  beyond  toward  Van- 
couver, British  Columbia,  and  will  soon  have  a  freight  line 
of  least  grades  between  Puget  Sound  and  the  Great  Lakes. 
^  A  one-per-cent  grade  means  a  rise  of  one  foot  in  a  track 
190 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

one  hundred  feet  long.  Two  per  cent  is  called  a  mountain 
grade.  All  transcontinental  lines  have  grades  in  mountains 
running  two  per  cent  and  over,  save  the  Great  Northern 
Railway.  This  is  his  secret:  easy  grades,  without  too  much 
cost  in  added  distance.  He  threw  away  eighty  miles  of  moun- 
tain line  in  Montana  once  just  because  later  surveys  proved 
a  much  easier  grade  possible  in  another  direction.  The 
difference  between  eight-tenths-per-cent  grade  and  six- 
tenths  per  cent  does  not  seem  much,  but  a  locomotive  will 
pull  one-half  as  many  more  cars  on  the  latter  as  on  the 
former.  That  is  to  say,  the  cost  of  hauling  on  a  road  contain- 
ing eight-tenths-per-cent  grades  is  fifty  per  cent  greater 
than  operating  on  a  road  of  siz-tenths-per-cent  grades.When 
other  roads  go  into  a  receiver's  hands,  Jim  Hill  continues  to 
make  seven-per-cent  dividends  for  his  stockholders. 
A  steadily  falling  cost  of  hauling  freight,  with  greater 
expedition  of  same,  has  marked  Mr.  Hill's  progress  in  the 
railroad  world.  In  the  spring  of  Eighteen  Hundred 
Eighty-seven,  the  St.  Paul,  Minneapolis  and  Manitoba 
Railroad  started  westward  from  Minot,  North  Dakota, 
toward  Great  Falls,  Montana,  a  distance  of  five  hundred 
fifty  miles.  The  Montana  Central  Railroad,  now  part  of  the 
Great  Northern  Railway  System,  carried  it  on  one  hundred 
miles  further  to  Helena.  The  steel  was  all  laid  in  one  summer, 
at  times  as  much  as  five  miles  a  day.  Mr.  Hill  kept  close 
supervision  of  the  progress  of  this  work,  driving  over  the 
grade  almost  monthly  from  end  of  track  to  Great  Falls.  With 
relays  of  ranchers'  horses  one  hundred  miles  per  day  could 
be  inspected,  flj.  M.  Egan,  General  Superintendent,  under 
Allan  Manvel,  General  Manager,  had  complete  charge,  assisted 
by  C.C.  Shields. Five  years  later,  in  Eighteen  Hundred  Ninety- 
two,  the  then  Great  Northern  Railroad  pushed  westward 
from  Havre  to  Seattle.  Shields  had  charge  of  this,  and  for 


JAMES 


HILL 


his  assistant  chose  "  Fighting  Farrell."  Farrell  afterwards 
became  Assistant  to  President  Hill.  His  headquarters  were 
at  Seattle.  Hill  furnished  him  opportunity  for  greatness; 
he  improved  the  opportunity,  but  Harriman  eventually 
captured  him  and  he  led  the  enemy  into  Seattle. 
John  F.  Stevens  was  under  E.  H.  Bechler,  who  had  charge, 
and  retired  on  completion  of  the  road,  his  assistant  becom- 
ing Chief  Engineer  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway  System. 
^  And  so  they  built  a  transcontinental  line  without  a  dollar 
of  Government  aid. 


HE  St.  P.,  M.  &  M.  Ry.,  when 
Mr.  Hill  was  General  Manager, 
had  a  capital  of  fifteen  millions. 
Today  the  capital  stock  of  the 
Great  Northern  is  two  hundred 
millions.  Northern  Pacific  about 
two  hundred  and  twenty  millions, 
and  Burlington  stock  two  hundred 
millions. 

Up  to  about  his  fortieth  year, 
James  J.  Hill  was  preparing  for 
his  life-work.  His  mind  was  fallow 
waiting  for  the  thirty-year  harvest  to  follow. 
No  man  can  become  great  save  as  he  selects  others  to  help 
him.  Mr.  Hill  chose  his  helpers.  Donald  A.  Smith,  Norman 
Kittson,  George  Stephens,  John  S.  Kennedy,  R.  B.  Angus 
were  among  the  first.  Later,  H.  D.  Minot,  a  wealthy  Boston- 
ian,  and  a  Harvard  graduate,  was  induced  to  come  West  and 
put  some  of  his  millions  into  the  line  which  connected  the 
192 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

Twin  Cities  with  the  head  of  the  Great  Lakes  at  Duluth, 
including  all  the  valuable  terminals  thereat,  with  branches 
to  the  iron-ore  fields  lying  North  and  Northwest.  Minot  was 
made  President  of  this  branch,  which  is  now  a  part  of  the 
Great  Northern  System.  Minot,  after  whom  the  town  of 
Minot,  North  Dakota,  was  named,  was  a  literary  man.  He 
wrote  fairish  poetry,  and  he  got  up  a  code  for  the  use  of  the 
Great  Northern  Railway  officials. 

A  clerk  by  the  name  of  Frank  E.  Ward  worked  for  him,  and 
at  a  near-by  desk  sat  Charlie  Sercombe.  Work  being  slack, 
young  Sercombe  said  to  Minot  privately  one  day,  "  You  are 
paying  us  sixty  dollars  each  month — let  Frank  go  and 
I  will  do  all  the  work  for  seventy-five  dollars." 
The  result  was  that  Sercombe,  who  had  made  the  suggestion, 
was  fired,  and  young  Ward  got  the  seventy-five  dollars  and 
did  the  work.  Ward  was  office-boy  in  the  Grand  Trunk 
Railway  offices  at  Montreal,  first.  Upon  Minot's  death  (he 
was  killed  in  a  railway  wreck  in  Pennsylvania),  Mr.  Hill 
took  Ward  and  rapidly  advanced  him  to  be  Assistant  to  the 
President.  He  was  then  given  charge  of  the  Montana 
Central  Railway  (now  in  the  Great  Northern  Railway 
System),  perhaps  the  most  difficult  position  of  any  on  the 
road.  He  was  General  Superintendent  of  the  Great  Northern 
Railroad  in  Nineteen  Hundred  Two,  and  made  General 
Manager  soon  after,  taking  the  place  of  John  F.  Stevens. 
He  is  now  General  Manager  of  the  Chicago,  Burlington  and 
Quincy. 

Stevens  was  chosen  by  the  President  at  Washington  as 
being  the  ablest  engineer  to  push  the  construction  of  the 
Panama  Canal. 

Stevens  was  too  good  a  man  to  brook  interference  on  the 
part  of  President  Roosevelt  or  envious  army  engineers,  so 
he  gave  up  the  Panama  job  in  disgust  and  is  again  working 

193 


JAMES 


H      I      L 


for  Mr.  Hill.  QR.  I.  Farrington,  Comptroller  and  Second 
Vice-President  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway,  was  a  clerk 
in  the  auditor's  office  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Railway  at 
seventy  dollars  a  month  in  Eighteen  Hundred  Eighty-five, 
and  afterward  was  paymaster  for  the  Rock  Island. 
When  Charles  H.  Warren  became  Comptroller  of  the  Great 
Northern  Railway  in  Eighteen  Hundred  Eighty-eight,  he 
made  young  Farrington  auditor  of  disbursements  at  two 
hundred  a  month. 

Farrington  was  a  perfect  wizard  at  figures.  When  Warren 
was  made  General  Manager,  Farrington  took  his  place  as 
Comptroller;  later  he  became  Vice-President  and  Director 
and  had  J.  G.  Drew  as  Assistant  Comptroller. 
Edward  Sawyer,  of  Quaker  parentage,  now  seventy  years 
and  upwards,  Treasurer  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway, 
was  appointed  first  Treasurer  of  the  St.  P.,  M.  &  M.  Ry.  He 
is  an  able  man  who  asks  for  no  bouquets.  For  over  thirty 
years  he  has  worked  for  Mr.  Hill.  He  is  a  Director  in  the 
Great  Northern.  He  was  brought  West  from  a  New  England 
bank  and  has  had  charge  of  more  millions  in  working  for 
Mr.  Hill  than  an  average  banker  sees  in  a  lifetime. 


194 


JAMES 


H      I      L 


HE  clothes  that  a  man  wears,  the 
house  that  he  builds  for  his  family 
and  the  furnishings  that  he  places 
therein  are  all  an  index  of  his 
character.  Mr.  Hill's  mansion  on 
Summit  Avenue,  St.  Paul,  was  built 
to  last  a  thousand  years.  The  bronze 
girder  that  supports  the  grand  stair- 
case is  strong  enough  to  hold  up  a 
locomotive. 

The  house  is  nearly  two  hundred 
feet  long,  but  looks  proportionate, 
from  the  Art-Gallery  with  its  fine  pictures  and  pipe-organ 
at  one  end,  to  its  rich  leather-finished  dining-room  at  the 
other.  It  is  of  brownstone — the  real  Fifth  Avenue  stuff. 
Fond  du  Lac  stone  is  cheaper  and  perhaps  just  as  good,  but 
it  has  the  objectionable  light-colored  spots. 
^  Nothing  but  the  best  will  do  for  Hill.  The  tallest  flagpole 
that  can  pass  the  curves  of  the  mountains  between  Puget 
Sound  and  St.  Paul  graces  the  yard.  The  kitchen  is  lined  with 
glazed  brick,  so  that  a  hose  could  be  turned  on  the  walls ; 
the  laundry-room  has  immense  drawers  for  indoor  drying 
of  clothes ;  no  need  to  open  a  single  window  for  ventilation, 
as  air  from  above  is  forced  inside  over  ice-chambers  in  simi- 
mer  and  over  hot-water  pipes  in  winter.  ^  Mr.  Hill  is  a  rare 
judge  of  art,  and  has  the  best  collection  of  "  Barbizons  "  in 
America.  Any  one  can  get  from  his  private  secretary,  Mr.  J.  J. 
Toomey,  a  card  of  admission.  As  early  as  Eighteen  Hundred 
Eighty -one,  Mr.  Hill  had  in  his  modest  home  on  Ninth 
Street,  St.  Paul,  several  "  Corots.  "  Mr.  Hill  is  fond  of  good 
horses,  and  has  a  hundred  or  so  of  them  on  his  farm  of  three 
thousand  acres,  ten  miles  North  of  St.  Paul. 
Some  years  ago,  while  President  of  the  Great  Northern 

195 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

Railway,  he  drove  night  and  morning  in  summer-time  to  and 
from  his  farm  to  his  office.  He  very  often  walks  to  his  house 
on  Summit  Avenue  or  takes  a  street-car.  He  is  thoroughly 
democratic,  and  may  be  seen  most  any  day  walking  from 
the  Great  Northern  Railway  office  engaged  in  conversation 
with  one  or  more,  and  no  matter  how  deeply  engrossed  or 
how  important  the  subject  in  hand,  he  never  fails  to  greet 
by  a  nod  or  a  smile  an  acquaintance. 
He  knows  everybody,  and  sees  everything. 
Mr.  Hill  knows  more  about  farming  than  any  man  I  ever 
met.  He  raises  hogs  and  cattle,  has  taken  prizes  for  fat  cattle 
at  the  Chicago  show,  and  knows  more  than  anybody  else 
today  as  to  the  food  supply  of  the  world — yes,  and  of  the 
coal  and  timber  supply,  too.  He  has  formed  public  opinion  on 
these  matters,  and  others,  by  his  able  contributions  to 
various  magazines. 

Seattle  erected  this  summer  a  monument  to  James  J.  Hill, 
and  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis  will,  I  know,  ere  long  be  only 
too  glad  to  do  something  in  the  same  line,  only  greater. 
Just  how  any  man  will  act  under  excitement  is  an  unknown 
quantity.When  the  Omaha  Railway  General  Offices  in  St. 
Paul  took  fire,  at  the  first  alarm  E.  W.  Winter,  then  General 
Manager,  ran  for  the  stairway,  emerging  on  the  street.  Then 
he  bawled  up  to  his  clerk  on  the  second  floor  excitedly, 
"  Charlie,  bring  down  my  hat.  "  But  his  clerk,  young 
Fuller,  with  more  presence  of  mind,  was  then  at  the  telephone 
sending  in  word  to  the  fire-department.  Everybody  got  out 
safely,  even  to  the  top  floor,  but  the  building  was  destroyed. 
^  One  night  about  ten  o'clock,  the  St.  P.,  M.  &  M.  Ry.  offices 
at  St.  Paul  caught  fire. 

The  smoke  penetrated  the  room  where  Mr.  Hill  with  his 
Secretary,  Will  Stephens,  was   doing  some  work  after  all 
others  had  departed.  They  had  paid  no  attention  to  the  alarm 
196 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

of  fire,  but  the  smell  of  smoke  started  them  into  action. 
§Young  Stephens  hurriedly  carried  valued  books  and  papers 
to  the  vault,  while  Mr.  Hill  with  the  strength  of  a  giant 
grasped  a  heavy  roll-top  desk  used  by  A.  H.  Bode,  Comp- 
troller, pushed  it  to  the  wall,  and  threw  it  bodily  out  of  the 
second-story  window. 

The  desk  was  shattered  to  fragments  and  the  hoodlums 
grabbed  on  to  the  contents.  No  harm  was  done  to  the  railway 
ofiice,  save  discoloring  the  edges  of  some  documents. 
The  next  morning  when  Bode,  all  unconscious  of  fire  or 
accident,  came  to  work,  Edward  Sawyer,  the  Treasurer,  said 
jokingly,  "  Bode,  you  may  consider  yourself  discharged, 
for  your  desk  is  in  the  street.  " 

When  Conductor  McMillan  sold  his  farm  in  the  valley  for 
ten  thousand  dollars,  he  asked  Mr.  Hill  what  he  should  do 
with  the  money.  "  Buy  Northern  Securities,  "  was  the 
answer.  He  did  so  and  saw  them  jump  one-third. 
Frank  Mofifatt  was  Mr.  HilPs  Secretary  for  some  years.  Frank 
now  has  charge  of  the  Peavey  Estate.  C.  D.  Bentley,  now  a 
prominent  insurance  man  of  St.  Paul,  a  friend  of  Frank's, 
used  to  visit  him  in  Mr.  Hill's  private  oflSce.  Mr.  Hill  caught 
him  there  once  and  said,  "  Young  man,  if  I  catch  you  here 
again  I  *11  throw  you  out  of  the  window.  " 
Bentley  thought  he  meant  it,  so  kept  away  in  the  future. 
He  told  the  story  once  in  my  presence,  when  Mr.  Hill  was 
also  present.  Mr.  Hill  bought  red  lemonade  for  the  bunch. 
^  A  porter  on  his  private  car  was  foolish  enough  to  ask  him 
at  Chicago  once  at  what  hour  the  train  returned.  That 
porter  had  all  day  to  look  for  another  job,  and  Mr.  HilPs 
secretary  provided  another  porter  at  once.  Mr.  Hill  can  not 
overlook  incompetency  or  neglect. 

Colonel  Clough  engineered  Northern  Securities;  M.  D. 
Grover,  attorney  for  the  Great  Northern  Railway,  said  it 

197 


JAMES 


HILL 


would  not  work.  Grover  was  the  brightest  attorney  the  road 
ever  had.  When  the  scheme  failed  Grover  never  once  said, 
"  I  told  you  so,  "  and  Mr.  Hill  sent  him  a  check  for  a  thou- 
sand dollars,  over  and  above  his  salary. 
Colonel  Clough  was  employed  at  a  salary  of  fifteen  thousand 
dollars,  some  years  before  his  real  work  began.  He  came  from 
the  Northern  Pacific.  Mr.  Hill,  when  asked  by  a  leading 
official  of  that  road,  what  he  thought  of  the  Colonel,  replied, 
"  Huh  I  he  *s  a  good  man  to  file  contracts.  " 
Mr.  Hill  said  of  Allan  Manvel,  then  General  Manager  of 
his  road,  "  He  may  make  a  man  some  day.  "  Mr.  Hill  grew 
faster  than  any  man  about  him.  He  distanced  them  all.  S.  S. 
Breed  was  Treasurer  of  the  old  St.  Paul  and  Pacific  Railroad. 
His  signature  in  a  bold,  fine  hand  adorned  all  the  bonds  of 
that  road,  held  mostly  by  the  Dutch.  He  was  made  auditor 
when  the  St.  P.,  M.  &  M.  Ry.  was  formed. 
Breed  had  reached  his  point  of  greatest  efficiency,  but  that 
did  not  suffice  Mr.  Hill,  who  said  to  him  more  than  once,  for 
Breed  was  an  old-timer  and  well  liked,  "  If  you  can't  do  the 
work  I  '11  have  to  get  some  one  who  can.  "  Mr.  Hill  neither 
fired  the  old  man,  nor  reduced  his  pay.  Breed  got  work  up 
to  his  death  in  the  Great  Northern  Railway  office,  but  at 
the  last  served  as  a  guide  for  strangers. 
Breed  was  supplanted  by  Bode  as  Comptroller,  followed  by 
C.  H.  Warren  and  then  by  Farrington — three  Big  Boys. 


198 


JAMES 


HILL 


BOUT  Eighteen  Hundred  Eighty- 
nine,  Mr.  Hill  gave  an  address  at 
a  banquet  in  the  Merchants'  Hotel, 
St.  Paul.  With  a  large  map  of 
the  United  States  and  Canada  on 
the  wall,  he  took  a  huge  pair  of 
dividers  or  compasses  and  putting 
one  leg  of  the  dividers  on  the  map 
at  St.  Paul,  he  swung  the  other 
leg  out  Southeast  fifteen  hundred 
miles  as  the  crow  flies,  into  the 
ocean  off  the  Carolina  Coast. 
Then  with  St.  Paul  still  as  a  center  he  swung  the  compass 
around  to  the  Northwest  fifteen  hundred  miles.  "  All  of  this 
country,  "  he  said,  "  is  within  the  wheat-belt.  "  The  leg  of 
the  compass  went  beyond  Edmonton  in  Alberta.  Last  year 
this  new  Canadian  country  produced  more  than  one  hundred 
million  bushels  of  wheat,  and  this  is  only  the  beginning. 
Mr.  Hill  has  always  maintained  that  to  call  cotton  king  is 
a  misnomer.  Cotton  never  was  king.  Wheat  is  king,  for  food 
is  more  important  than  raiment. 

Wheat  is  the  natural  food  of  man.  The  civilization  of  ancient 
Greece  was  built  upon  Nile  Valley  Wheat.  It  is  the  one 
complete,  perfect,  vegetable  food.  It  contains  all  of  the 
elements  necessary  to  the  making  of  the  human  body.  The 
supply  of  wheat  is  the  arterial  blood  that  makes  this  world 
of  ours  do  something.  Without  wheat  we  would  languish — 
go  quickly  to  seed,  as  China  has. 

St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis  lie  at  the  head  of  navigation  on  the 
Mississippi  River — a  little  less  than  two  thousand  miles  by 
water  from  the  Gulf  and  about  the  same  distance  from 
Puget  Sound  tide-water  by  rail. 

These  cities  are  in  the  middle  of  the  wheat-belt.  To  this  point 

199 


JAMES  J.  HILL 

came  Mr.  Hill,  a  green  country  youth.  ^Transportation 
was  his  theme,  and  transportation  of  wheat  has  been  the 
foundation  of  his  success. 

Wheat  is  of  more  importance  to  us  than  anything  else — than 
gold  or  cotton  or  coal  or  timber  or  iron. 
Mr.  Hill  carries  over  his  railroads  all  of  these.  The  Great 
Northern  Railway,  the  Northern  Pacific,  and  the  Chicago, 
Burlington  and  Quincy — over  twenty  thousand  miles  of 
track — are  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 
He  directs,  controls,  even  to  minute  details,  this  great 
transportation  system. 

His  seventieth  birthday  was  celebrated  a  year  ago  last 
September.  Still  he  fails  not.  He  has  given  up  the  Presidency 
of  the  Great  Northern  Railway,  retaining,  however,  the  title, 
"  Chairman  of  the  Board."  But  we  all  know  that  his  hand 
is  felt  just  the  same  in  every  part  of  the  working  of  these 
miles  of  track. 

It  has  been  said  of  him  that  he  knew  every  spike  on  the 
Great  Northern  Railway.  General  Managers  are  changed 
or  removed  as  simply  as  an  office-boy  is  asked  to  skidoo. 
MacGuiggan  MacGuire  was  brought  from  the  East  to  be 
General  Manager  and  Vice-President  at  a  fabulous  salary. 
^  He  had  charge  of  operation  of  the  Great  Northern.  A  few 
short  months  showed  his  unfitness,  and  the  boys  were  told 
that  he  had  gone  to  Europe  for  a  change.  They  never  saw 
him  after. 

Charles  H.  Warren  was  a  bright  assistant  as  stenographer 
and  clerk  to  General  Manager  Manvel.  Mr.  Hill  made  him 
General  Passenger  Agent,  afterward  Comptroller,  then 
General  Manager.  But  Warren,  after  marrying  a  stockholder's 
daughter,  got  chesty  and  aspired  to  be  President  of  the 
Great  Northern  Railway.  He  would  n't  resign  and  so  was 
fired.  He  found  his  office-desk  one  morning  in  the  hall.  Then 
200 


JAMES 


H      I      L 


he  took  a  little  holiday  before  taking  a  responsible  position 
on  the  Central  Railroad  of  New  Jersey,  and  marching  on  to 
fame  and  fortune.  QA.  L.  Mohler,  a  big  man  on  the  Union 
Pacific,  was  Assistant  Freight  Agent  on  the  St.  P.,  M.  &  M. 
Ry.,  afterwards  General  Freight  Agent,  then  Land  Com- 
missioner, then  General  Manager.  His  day  of  greatest  use- 
fulness for  Mr.  Hill  was  passed,  and  he  gravitated  to  the 
0.  R.  R.  &  N.  of  Oregon,  thence  to  the  Oregon  Short  Line  and 
afterwards  to  the  high  position  he  now  occupies  on  the 
Harriman  System.  Migration  is  a  fine  thing,  and  many  a 
good  man  has  to  move  on  before  he  finds  his  place.  ^  The 
Great  Northern  Railway  is  a  training-school  for  railroad  men. 
And  when  it  is  time  for  a  man  to  go,  on  he  goes. 


R.  HILL  has  three  sons,  all  able 
and  growing  men.  But  whether 
they  possess  divine  caloric  or  not, 
it  is  too  early  to  say.  But  certainly 
it  is  true  that  they  are  bigger 
men  now  than  he  was  at  their 
age.  Louis  W.  is  President  of  the 
Great  Northern  System.  James  N. 
is  Vice-President  of  the  Northern 
Pacific.  Walter,  the  youngest  boy, 
looks  after  vast  iron-ore  properties 
in  the  Lake  Superior  country. 
There  are  also  two  daughters,  happily  married,  with  growing 
broods  of  chubby  youngsters  who  often  gather  at  the  big 
home  on  Summit  Avenue  and  make  their  Gran'pa  play  he 
is  an  elephant  for  their  benefit. 

201 


The  Roycroft  Motto-Book 


This  is  a  catalog  and  a  list  of  about 
Three  Hundred  Mottoes  or  Epi- 
grams by  Fra  Elbertus  3^  In  this 
book  we  giwe  the  Motto  and  the 
price,  size  of  paper,  etc.,  upon 
which  the  Motto  is  printed  3^ 
These  Mottoes  are  mostly  printed 
on .  Italian  Hand-made  paper,  or 
Japan  Vellum,  size  1 2x1 6  inches, 
hand-illumined,  suitable  for  fra- 
ming. "We  also  have  some  in  the 
original  designs. 

They  form  rare  and  unique  deco- 
rations for  office,  library,  hall  or 
guest-rooms  3<  Our  Motto-Book 
tells  all  about  them. 
This  Book  of  Three  Hundred 
Mottoes,  Printed  in  Four  Colors, 
will  be  mailed  to  you  on  receipt 
of  TEN  CENTS. 


The  Roy  crofters.  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


LEVANT   CLASSICS 

The  person  who  "has  everything"  is  the  tilkychoo  of  kindly 
intentioned  folks,  at  Christmas-Time.  Yet  there  is  a  way  out.  You 
never  fail  to  invite  a  finer  understanding  by  contributing  a  Levant 
Classic  to  your  Friend's  Library.  No  one  person  ever  had  too 
many  Roycroft  Books.  ^The  following  Books  are  Bound  in  Full 
Levant  with  Hand-tooled,  Original  Designs  and  Inlaid  Gold  on 
Covers.  They  are  Printed  in  Two  Colors  on  the  Finest  Japan 
Vellum  and  some  few  of  them  are  beautifully  Illumined  by  Hand. 

PRICE  — EACH,     TWENTY-FIVE     DOLLARS 
Holly-Tree  Inn      -------     Dickens 

Dog  of  Flanders    -------       Ouida 

Song  of  Myself      ------  Whitman 

A  Lodging  for  the  Night        -         -         -         -  Stevenson 

Respectability        ------  Hubbard 

Poems     -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  Poe 

Man  of  Sorrows     ------  Hubbard 

FRIENDSHIP,  Henry  D.  Thoreau          -  -  -  $250.00 

CONTEMPLATIONS,  ElbeH  Hubbard  -  -  200.00 

ESSAYS  OF  ELIA,  Charles  Lamb            -  -  -  100.00 

VIRGINIBUS  PUERISQUE,  Stevenson  -  -  50.00 

IN   THREE-QUARTERS   LEVANT.      Each,   Ten   Dollars 

Respectability  Thomas  Jefferson  Broncho  Book 

Garcia  and  Thirteen  Self-Reliance  Crimes  Against 

Old  John  Burroughs  Dog  of  Flanders  Criminals 

Rip  Van  Winkle  Law  of  Love  Christmas  Carol 

Thoreau's  Friendship  Justinian  &  Theodora  tt  n    t" 

Love.  Life  and  Work  Battle  of  Waterloo  ^olly- 1  ree  Inn 

William  Morris  Rubaiyat  A  Lodging  for  the 

Man  of  Sorrows  White  Hyacinths  Night 

Heine's  Songs  Consecrated  Lives  Woman's  Work 

Nature  Reading  Gaol  Song  of  Myself 


To  know  Hubbard's  Writings 

and 

To  know  Roycroft  Bindings 

you  had  best  experiment  with  a  Bound  Volume  of  "Little 
Journeys."  <5  In  these  Brief  Biographies  you  get  the  Kernel  of 
the  Hubbard  Style  and  the  Hubbard  Philosophy.  QAnd  as  for 
the  Books  themselves,  they  are  perhaps  the  Best  Value  ever 
offered  by  The  Roycrofters.  Q  Bound  Stalwartly  in  Brown  Boards 
and  Calfskin,  with  Gilt  Title  and  silk  marker.  Printed  on  Italian 
hand-made  paper.  CJ  Each  volume  contains  Six  Little  Journeys 
with  Portrait  of  Subject.  TWO  DOLLARS  for  single  volume. 


Volume  I.  To  the  Homes  of  Good  Men  and  Great 

Volume  II.  To  the  Homes  of  American  Authors 

Volume  III.  To  the  Homes  of  Famous  Women 

Volume  IV.  To  the  Homes  of  American  Statesmen 

Volume  V.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Painters 

Volume  VI.  To  the  Homes  of  English  Authors 

Volume  VII.  To  the  Homes  of  English  Authors 

Volume  VIII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Musicians 

Volume  IX.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Musicians 

Volume  X.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Artists 

Volume  XI.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Artists 

Volume  XII.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Orators 

Volume  XIII.  To  the  Homes  of  Eminent  Orators 

Volume  XIV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Philosophers 

Volume  XV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Philosophers 

Volume  XVI.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Scientists 

Volume  XVn.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Scientists 

Volume  XVIII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Lovers 

Volume  XIX.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Lovers 

Volume  XX.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Reformers 

Volume  XXI.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Reformers 

Volume  XXII.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Teachers 

Volume  XXni.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Teachers 

Volume  XXIV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Business  Men 

Volume  XXV.  To  the  Homes  of  Great  Business  Men 


O  AVOID 
UNKIND 
CRITiaSM: 


SAY    NOTHING, 
BE  NOTHING,  DO 

NOTHING.— Fra  Elberha 


AND  without 
population  is 
a  wilderness, 


and  population  with- 
out land  is  a  mob« 


JAMES       J  .       HILL 


